s 

University  of  California  •  Berkley 


No  DYNASTY  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 


THE  WEST  BETWEEN  SALT  WATERS. 

HUDSON  BAY  A  FREE  BASIN  LIKE  THE  GULF  OF  MEXICO. 

HUDSON  STRAIT  A  FREE  GATE  LIKE  THE 
STRAIT  OF  FLORIDA. 

MANITOBA  LIKE  LOUISIANA  A  MARITIME  STATE. 
NORTH  AMERICA  FOR  CITIZENS,  NOT  FOR  SUBJECTS, 

THE  WEST  AND  ITS  WAYS  OUT  TO  THE  COAST 
AND  IN  FROM  THE  OCEAN. 

MISCELLANY. 


BY 

THOMAS    S.  FEENOK 


FOR    SALE    AT 

BRENTANO'S  LITERARY  EMPORIUM, 

89   Union   Square,   New   York. 


PRICE,  FIFTY  CENTS. 


No  DYNASTY  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 


THE  WEST  BETWEEN  SALT  WATERS. 

HUDSON  BAY  A  FREE  BASIN  LIKE  THE  GULF  OF  MEXICO. 

HUDSON  STRAIT  A  FREE  GATE  LIKE  THE 
STRAIT  OF  FLORIDA. 

MANITOBA  LIKE  LOUISIANA  A  MARITIME  STATE. 
NORTH  AMERICA  FOR  CITIZENS,  NOT  FOR  SUBJECTS, 

THE  WEST  AND  ITS  WAYS  OUT  TO  THE  COAST 
AND  IN  FROM  THE  OCEAN. 

MISCELLANY. 


BY 

THOMAS    S.  FEEISTOK 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESS     OF     HENRY     B.     ASH  MEAD, 

Nos.  1102  AND  1104  SANSOM  STREET. 
1878. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1878,  by 

THOMAS  S.  FERNON, 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


NO  DYNASTY  IN  NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  atlas  of  the  world  contains  no  political  outline  so  "  ragged 
edged"  as  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  made  up  of  misallied  provinces 
in  single  file  like  Indians  on  a  trail,  nowhere  two  abreast ;  and  of  which 
it  may  be  said,  could  the  autonomic  wonder  be  described,  that  Mani 
toba  is  its  chest,  with  one  lung  thawed  in  the  grain-growing  summer 
solstice,  the  other  lung  blockaded  with  ice  throughout  the  year ;  its 
waist  the  wasp  girth  of  ground  between  Lake  Superior  and  James 
Bay ;  Nova  Scotia  its  heel ;  and  Newfoundland  the  big  toe  of  its 
"best  foot  put  foremost"  among  the  fishes. 

The  Dominion  of  Canada  was  organized  contemporaneously  with 
the  military  adventure  of  Napoleon  the  Third  in  Mexico,  during  the 
rebellion  of  the  Potomac  Rio-Grande  States,  1861-65,  in  expectation 
that  secession  would  succeed  and  the  American  Union  be  dissolved. 
To  profit  from  this  disaster  France  and  Great  Britain  made  mutual 
preparations.  But  the  "wayward  sisters"  that  loved  secession  "not 
wisely  but  too  well,"  when  they  went  out  at  the  side  doors  open 
south,  are  reinstalled  in  their  old  places  and  duties  under  the  invin 
cible  Constitution,  which,  to  preserve  liberty  in  the  Republic  and  union 
among  the  States,  can  take  shape  to  meet  necessities,  can  carry  guns 
like  a  ship  and  be  reefed  and  unfurled  like  a  sail,  to  suit  the  weather 
of  the  times ;  and  the  prodigal  sons  of  secession,  willing  to  serve  the 
country,  break  bread  in  Washington  and  divide  appropriations  in 
Congress  with  representatives  of  the  States  that  continued  steadfast ; 
and  so  the  four  quarters  of  the  country,  named  after  the  cardinal 
points,  are  all  cemented  in  the  joints  dovetailed  in  the  Union  shield, 
and  every  State  is  a  standard  star  on  the  national  flag. 

The  American  citizen  is  always  and  everywhere  gladdened  by  the 
ensign  of  his  nationality  ;  and  the  subject  in  political  fetters  is  cheered 
by  the  stars  and  stripes,  radiant  in  the  ports  of  the  world  penetrated 
•  by  American  ships,  with  colors  at  the  mast-head,  free  in  the  wind  and 
bright  against  the  heavens,  the  banner  an  inspiration,  the  background 
the  resting  place  for  hope.  What  a  contrast  between  freedom  and 


despotism  !  What  a  transition  from  bondage  of  the  mind  to  liberty 
of  speech  and  action  !  Through  its  flag  the  American  Union  is  visible, 
as  through  the  firmament  the  universe  is  comprehensible ;  and  the 
harmony  among  the  States  that  move  in  the  Union  is  identical  with 
the  harmony  among  the  orbs  that  move  in  space.  Lift  up  your 
thoughts,  oh  ye  politicians  in  Congress,  and  look  over  North  America, 
ye  rulers  in  Washington  ! 

Beyond  the  Rio  Grande  neighbor  Mexico  is  an  independent  Repub 
lic  ;  whereas  the  Dominion  north  of  a  boundary  line  of  many  crooks 
and  few  tangents,  though  cradled  in  "great  expectations,"  an  empire 
in  embryo,  for  a  Prince  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  or  some  one  of  its 
choosing,  is  uncultivable  for  cereal  and  fibrous  crops  in  two-thirds  or 
more  of  its  superficial  square  miles. 

"  Only  partially  thawed  in  summer,"  says  the  geographical  chart, 
on  the  polar  side  of  a  climate  line  through  the  British  Possessions ; 
and  white-bear,  reindeer,  and  walrus,  says  the  same  chart,  above  a 
climate  line  described  as  the  "northern  limit  of  barley  and  trees," 
which  crosses  Slave  Lake  and  intersects  Hudson  Bay  near  the  mouth 
of  Nelson  River. 

The  arctic  highlands  and  islands  and  the  icy  seas  and  sounds 
between  Alaska  and  Baffin  Bay,  and  from  the  sixtieth  parallel  to  the 
pole,  may  be  considered  British  territory  to  expand  the  circumference 
of  empire,  and  perhaps  commend  the  Dominion  to  adventurous  trap 
pers,  sanguine  fur  traders,  and  rash  navigators  in  search  of  the 
magnetic  point  and  the  northwest  passage ;  but  for  governmental 
purposes  these  considerations  are  of  minimum  account,  even  though 
the  Esquimaux  be  assessed  as  tributers  for  mining  for  fishes  in  fissures 
in  the  ice. 

And  Europeans,  when  they  compare  localities  in  high  latitudes  in 
North  America  with  localities  on  corresponding  lines  in  their  own 
country,  ought  always  credit  their  milder  home  climate  to  the  Gulf 
Stream  which  passes  a  tepid  river  between  banks  of  colder  water  from 
the  Florida  Strait  to  the  British  islands,  and  via  the  North  Sea  to 
Norway ;  whilst  the  arctic  current,  with  Greenland's  icebergs  adrift 
in  its  waters,  cold  almost  to  the  freezing  point,  prolongs  the  embargo 
of  winter  in  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  defers  the  opening  of  navigation 
to  Quebec  and  Montreal  till  more  than  half  the  season  of  spring, 
always  a  busy  time,  is  past  and  gone. 

Moreover,  it  is  wicked,  because  it  is  deception,  to  inscribe  on  a  map 
of  the  Dominion  of  Canada  "latitude  of  London  50°  30'"  athwart 
Lake  Winnipeg,  where  in  midwinter  the  mercury  sinks  to  fifty  degrees 
below  zero,  and  has  been  cast  into  balls  in  bullet  moulds,  for  ocular 
demonstration. 


True,  there  are  prairie  bottoms,  upland  terraces,  and  little  and  large 
oases  in  the  Winnipeg  basin,  between  the  international  boundary  fence 
and  the  isothermal  limit  to  agriculture.  And  the  Dominion  govern 
ment,  with  the  proceeds  of  loans  negotiated  in  the  "mother  country," 
is  traversing  Dominion  territory  with  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway 
through  twenty-seven  hundred  (2700)  miles  of  wilderness,  from  Mont 
real  via  Ottawa,  Serlick,  and  Yellow  Head  Pass,  to  the  Pacific  waters. 
But  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  fact  disparaging  to  the  Dominion  that,  of 
the  Europeans  who  first  land  in  Canada,  many  soon  push  on  through 
it  into  the  States ;  so  an  emigrant  via  the  Dominion  is  an  immigrant 
in  the  Union,  and  hence,  notwithstanding  that  Quebec  was  founded 
in  1608,  and  is  older  than  New  York  city,  and  Serlick  in  Manitoba 
was  settled  fifty  years  before  Minnesota,  New  York  city  to-day  con 
tains  as  many  inhabitants  as  twenty  Quebecs,  whereas  the  white 
population  in  Minnesota  is  more  than  thirty-six  times  the  white  and 
half-breed  population  of  Manitoba.  New  York  State  contains  a  larger 
population  than  the  whole  Dominion  of  Canada,  although  Jacques 
Cartier,  a  French  navigator,  sailed  up  the  St.  Lawrence  in  1535,  arid 
it  was  not  till  1609  that  Hendrick  Hudson,  in  the  Dutch  service, 
entered  the  waters  of  New  York  Bay. 

In  British  Columbia  gold  was  discovered  in  1858,  twenty  years 
ago ;  but  Washington  Territory,  on  the  Union  side  of  the  temporary 
boundary  fence,  and  which  never  allured  gold-hunters,  contains  more 
than  twice  the  population  of  its  British  neighbor.  Why  ?  Because 
one  is  part  of  the  American  Republic,  the  other  is  a  dependency  of 
a  foreign  kingdom.  In  one  place  the  man  is  a  citizen,  where  patent- 
rights  are  restricted  to  discoveries  and  inventions  in  the  sciences  and 
arts  ;  the  other  is  a  subject  who  owes  allegiance  to  a  far-away  dynasty, 
where  titles  are  inheritable  and  society  is  portioned  into  castes,  as 
railway  freight  is  portioned  into  classes.  Witness  : 

Square  Miles.  Census.  White  Population. 

Washington  Territory,  69,994  1870  22,195 

British  Columbia,  213,000  1871  10,586 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company's  charter,  dated  May  2,  1670,  expired 
in  1859.  Lord  Serlick  obtained  a  grant  of  land  on  Red  River  in 
1811,  and  in  1816  he  arrived  at  his  colony  with  a  military  escort. 

In  1816  the  site  of  Chicago  was  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  and 
the  Missouri  Territory  west  of  the  Mississippi  River  was  bounded  on 
the  south  by  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  on  the  north  by  British 
America.  Indiana  was  the  frontier  State,  admitted  into  the  Union 
December  11,  1816.  When,  therefore,  Lord  Serlick  visited  his  set 
tlement  on  Red  River,  in  1816.  via  Hudson  Bay  and  the  portages 


between  "York  Factory"  and  Serlick,  Union  domain  was  wilderness 
west  of  Lake  Michigan  ;  for  Minnesota  was  not  organized  as  a  Terri 
tory  till  March  3,  1849,  and  was  not  admitted  as  a  State  till 
February  26,  1857. 

Comparison.  Square  Miles.  Census.  Population. 

Minnesota,  83,531  1870  438,257 

Manitoba,  2,891,734  1871  11,963 

The  population  at  the  settlements  on  Red  River  and  the  Assini- 
boin  in  1843  was  5143. 

In  Minnesota  the  whites  only  are  counted;  in  Manitoba,  census  of 
1871,  the  half-breeds  are  included  with  the  whites. 

At  the  time  of  Lord  Serlick's  visit  to  Red  River  in  1816,  there 
were  only  eighteen  States  in  the  Union,  all  east  of  Lake  Michigan 
and  the  main  Mississippi  River,  except  Louisiana ;  whereas  now 
there  are  in  the  Union  thirty-eight  States,  and  eleven  Territories, 
containing  more  than  eleven  embryo  States. 

There  will  be  sixty  millions  of  inhabitants  in  the  Union  before 
there  will  be  five  millions  of  inhabitants  in  the  Dominion  ;  for,  in  the 
ten  years  ending  1871,  the  Provinces  of  Ontario,  Quebec,  New  Bruns 
wick,  and  Nova  Scotia  increased  only  395,265,  whereas,  in  the  ten 
years  ending  in  1870,  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  increased  595,941, 
arid  the  Union,  notwithstanding  four  years  of  sanguinary  civil  war, 
increased  7,075,877,  which  is  more  than  twice  the  total  of  Dominion 
population. 

Here  is  what  Minnesota,  Manitoba's  neighbor,  has  done  in  the  way 
of  growth  and  increase : 

Population,  1840.  1850.  1860.  1870.. 

Minnesota,  0  6.077  172,0-3  438,257 

Manitoba,  in  1871,  contained  of  whites  and  half-breeds  11,963. 
This,  indeed,  is  a  contrast  in  increase,  in  considering  which  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  the  French  fur  traders  had  penetrated  into  the 
Red  River  region  from  Hudson  Bay,  and  also  from  Lake  Superior, 
more  than  a  hundred  years  anterior  to  Lord  Serlick's  visit  in  1816. 
Fort  Bourbon,  now  York  Fort,  was  built  by  the  French,  who  held  it 
from  1697  to  1714,  when  possession  was  surrendered  to  the  English. 
Manitoba,  therefore,  cannot  urge  insulation  as  a  cause  of  its  small 
population,  because  its  two  routes  with  portages  gave  it  as  good 
communications  to  the  seaboard  as  were  available  across  the  Allegheny 
Mountain  to  the  Ohio  River,  prior  to  the  opening  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad  to  Wheeling,  llth  January,  1853,  and  the  Penn 
sylvania  Railroad  to  Pittsburgh,  14th  February,  1854.  Ohio  con- 


tained  over  two  millions  of  population  before  a  railway  track  crossed 
its  boundary  line.  "The  star  of  empire  westward  took  its  way"  at 
a  very  early  day  across  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  and  the  frontier 
State  was  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Mississippi  River,  opposite  the 
mouth  of  the  Ohio  River,  before  the  railway  was  in  public  use  even 
in  England,  the  land  of  its  invention  and  first  construction.  No,  no, 
it  is  as  a  State  that  Manitoba  may  more  reasonably  expect  to  attract 
immigration,  for  the  stranger  from  afar  would  then  find  within  it  the 
"liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity"  which  he  crossed  the  ocean  to 
enjoy,  in  personal  experiences  and  domestic  comforts. 

There  are  no  flanged  family  shoes  worn  in  the  Union  to  keep  the 
son  on  the  father's  track,  like  a  car  with  flanged  wheels  coupled  to  a 
car  ahead,  for  here  man  is  free  to  make  a  self-propelling  motor  of  his 
brain  power ;  whereas  to  move  a  train,  or  even  a  car,  a  steam  engine 
is  a  necessity.  Self-reliance  in  mundane  matters  is  the  American 
mental  characteristic,  and  the  observant  alien  plants  his  boy  in  Amer 
ican  ground  to  grow  an  American  citizen  and  enjoy  freedom  in  man 
hood.  The  scion  is  not  expected  to  trudge  behind  his  sire,  who 
succeeded  his  grandsire,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  strike  out  for  himself, 
when  moved  by  inward  capacity  for  advancement. 

Where  there  are  privileged  orders  to  be  fed  and  kept  fat  for  society 
show-beef  and  birds,  and  honors,  commissions,  and  offices  are  dis 
pensed  by  royal  favor,  or  by  royal  proxies,  the  wheel  of  fortune  is 
turned  by  hand,  clean  or  dirty  as  the  case  may  be,  like  the  wheel  of 
a  lottery  containing  a  few  prize  numbers  and  many  blanks ;  but  where 
the  goddess  Fortune  is  neither  fettered  nor  blindfolded,  and  there  is 
free  admission  to  the  industries  and  the  professions,  and  all  the  human 
pursuits  which  employ  civilized  society  are  open  opportunities  to 
necessity  and  ambition,  fortune  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  choice  of 
service,  but  only  with  the  delivery  of  the  compensations  and  prizes  in 
dollars  and  distinctions.  And  hence  we  see  in  the  high  places  in 
Washington  and  in  the  States,  and  at  the  head  of  the  industries  and 
the  professions,  men  moved  by  mental  power  and  moral  worth  from  the 
ranks  of  the  honest  poor  to  the  foremost  and  uppermost  positions. 

All  men  work  up  or  down,  for  no  sane  man  is  content  to  stand  still 
on  the  same  step  in  a  flight  of  stairs  between  two  floors ;  and  to  move 
forward  is  to  go  up  and  to  go  backward  is  to  go  down.  Fame  must  be 
won  else  it  cannot  be  worn  ;  fame  must  be  built  of  deeds  substantial 
as  monumental  stones,  or  it  cannot  be  perpetuated,  for  fame  is  the 
evidence  of  things  seen  with  the  eye  of  the  understanding;  but 
wealth  amassed  by  a  hoarder  of  dollars,  like  a  hay-stack  after  a 
mower  has  pitched  to  its  top  his  last  forkfull  of  grass,  is  apt  to 
diminish,  for  farm  stock  must  have  fodder,  and  heirs  have  voracity 


8 

the  same  as  rats ;  expansion  and  contraction  are  parts  of  one  law,  as 
the  up  and  down  ends  of  a  seesaw  are  parts  of  one  board. 

There  is  a  standard  measure  and  rule  and  a  true  balance ;  and 
persons  and  things  measured  and  weighed  are  sometimes  short,  some 
times  light;  but  despite  the  imperfections  and  inequalities  in  human 
nature,  there  has  been  no  recent  reaction  in  the  progress  of  the  world, 
for  Christian  peoples  now  girth  the  globe,  and  new  ideas  grow  among 
the  old  traditions.  Public  opinion  is  a  pervading  power,  tending 
more  and  more  to  a  prevailing  influence  in  cabinet,  council,  and  camp. 

Trust  in  God  and  His  purposes,  and  meantime  rely  on  yourself, 
and  in  honest  ways  strive  for  honorable  ends.  And  this  is  true  of 
nations  as  of  individuals ;  for  a  nation  in  its  governing  force  is  one 
man  multiplied  by  many,  as,  indeed,  is  the  population  of  the  earth  the 
posterity  of  one  mated  pair — Adam  and  Eve.  For  evidence  of  the 
past  look  to  the  books,  which,  however  imperfect,  are  the  only  wit 
nesses  that  survive  for  history  except  ruins. 

Before  attempting  to  forecast  probabilities,  watch  current  events, 
and  weigh  the  men  in  high  places,  as  weather  doctors  consult  the 
barometer,  to  ascertain  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the  ther 
mometer,  which  tells  the  degree  of  temperature. 

Thus  the  weather-vane  and  mercury-tube  do  much  for  man  ;  and 
the  equivalent  of  whatsoever  has  been  accomplished  is  possible  of 
repetition  ;  and  where  the  people  are  intelligent,  and  incumbents  of 
office  are  patriotic  to  country  and  true  to  duty,  the  ends  attained 
tend  to  the  common  good  of  mankind ;  for  developments  due  to  men 
tal  and  moral  causes  dispel  superstition  and  illuminate  darkness. 

France  is  a  flame  in  a  lighthouse  lantern  on  a  coast  strewn  with 
wrecks,  and  Paris  is  an  illuminated  clock  to  the  capitals  of  Europe, 
where  chronometers  are  not  corrected  to  the  sun  on  the  meridian,  but 
are  regulated  to  the  phases  of  affairs,  on  different  faces  for  separated 
places,  like  a  time-piece  with  dials  showing  the  hour  and  minute  in  all 
the  principal  cities  around  the  globe. 

There  are  other  eruptions  besides  volcanoes  which  bury  cities,  and 
there  are  subterranean  fires  other  than  those  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  which  make  its  surface  tremble  and  its  crust  crack  ;  for  public 
opinion  aroused  in  anger  can  pour  out  a  wrath  as  sure  to  overwhelm 
as  lava  poured  from  a  crater  is  certain  to  harden  in  a  winding-sheet. 

Under  the  Republic,  since  February,  1871,  France  has  achieved 
more  than  appeared  possible  in  so  few  years.  Hence  France  is  an 
exemplar  for  other  nations,  and  the  United  States  of  Europe  is  a  con 
summation  possible  to  the  masses,  in  whom  there  is  a  latent  fire 
like  electricity,  which,  though  invisible  in  the  atmosphere,  is  irresist 
ible  in  the  thunderbolt.  And,  as  a  storm  with  lightning  purifies  the 


9 

summer  air  which  human  beings  breathe  into  their  lungs,  so  revolu 
tion,  with  its  elements  in  anger,  is  a  sanitary  agent  where  dynastic 
abuses  offend  the  sense  of  practical  economy  and  deteriorate  the  public 
morals  and  political  health.  A  dynasty  is  a  piece  of  ground  watered 
by  irrigation  like  a  cranberry  patch  or  a' rice  plantation,  and  produces 
results  according  as  it  is  fed  with  the  rainfall  of  other  land,  through 
the  works  of  other  hands.  A  republic  of  free  states  is  an  orchard  of 
fruit-trees  ;  it  blossoms  and  bears. 

A  plough  turns  a  furrow  and  breaks  the  ground  for  a  new  crop. 
And  revolution  turns  the  subsoil  uppermost  to  bury  the  weeds  turned 
down,  and  give  the  corn  planted  room  to  grow  and  ripen  into  golden 
ears.  Without  revolution  the  "  Dark  Ages,"  which  cover  with  night 
more  than  half  the  Christian  era,  would  have  been  prolonged  through 
more  centuries.  To  revolution  humanity  is  indebted  for  the  American 
Union,  the  climax  of  free  government,  at  the  date  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  also  at  its  centennial  celebration.  Revolution 
is  public  opinion  expressed  successfully;  and  no  government  can  defy 
or  ignore  public  opinion  with  impunity,  for  it  is  everywhere  the  supreme 
power,  when  it  approximates  unanimity  in  judgment  and  action.  How 
careful  and  prompt  are  the  ambassadors  and  ministers  of  kings  and 
queens  on  the  chess-board  of  Europe,  to  make  a  case  or  an  excuse  for 
a  transaction  or  a  treaty  !  How  anxious  they  are«to  make  sharp  prac 
tice  pass  for  fair  play  !  as,  for  instance,  when  Austria  was  told  to  carve 
two  bones  off  Turkey,  through  muscles  and  sinews,  the  Berlin  Con 
gress  gave  the  appropriation  the  appearance  of  an  European  mandate 
rouged  in  the  interest  of  peace;  but  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  were  not 
to  be  assigned  without  protest  with  weapons,  and  the  Berlin  pretext 
deceived  nobody,  for  nowadays  important  facts  are  communicated  simul 
taneously  to  all  men  who  read  newspapers  and  draw  conclusions. 
The  telegram  travels  faster  in  wire  to  circulate  the  news,  than  the 
earth  turns  on  its  axis  to  greet  the  sun ;  steamships  straight-line  the 
oceans,  and  locomotive  engines  race-course  the  continents. 

The  Congress  of  Berlin,  called  to  consider  the  treaty  of  San  Ste- 
fano,  determined  fewer  issues  than  it  deferred ;  and  hence  the  uncer 
tainty  which  prevailed  before  it  met  has  not  been  diminished  since  it 
adjourned.  International  questions  put  off  to  sleep  are  in  a  condition 
of  quiet  which  may  be  broken  at  any  time,  and  the  recuperated  party 
roused  refreshed  for  another  strife.  What  Russia  needs  to  satisfy  its 
necessities — national  and  international — is  forecasted  and  understood; 
but  how  many  months  or  how  many  years  Russia  may  have  to  wait, 
and  how  and  where  Russia  may  have  to  venture  and  strike,  to  reach 
its  goal  is,  of  course,  problematical. 

The  cause  of  Russia  can  have  but  one  finality ;  its  course  is  to  a 


10 

destination  not  in  doubt,  for  it  is  the  most  conspicuous  objective  point 
in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  by  reason  of  its  ancient  time  and  modern 
date  antecedents  and  the  jealousies  and  cross  purposes  which  perplex 
the  European  situation. 

Unquestionably  the  war  indemnity  mentioned  in  the  San  Stefano 
treaty,  in  a  clause  which  the  Berlin  Congress  did  not  supplement,  is 
an  ember  in  hot  ashes,  where  a  little  stirring  will  make  a  smoke  and 
start  a  fire.  And  before  the  Russians  recross  the  Balkans,  homeward 
bound,  and  evacuate  Varna,  and  leave  Bulgaria  among  the  buzzards, 
there  are  sundry  settlements  to  be  made,  in  which  the  army  of  occu 
pation  can  cooperate  with  St.  Petersburg  like  a  fleet  with  London. 

Anti-Russian  diplomacy  exceeds  equivocation  when  it  professes  to 
believe  that  the  Russian  people  will  rest  on  any  treaty  as  final  and 
conclusive  which  does  not  assure  to  Russia  military  and  naval  facili 
ties  to  keep  the  straits  open  to  Russian  ships.  Nothing  short  of  such 
security  will  satisfy  Russia  or  make  peace  permanent. 

And  as  the  map  of  the  American  Union  will  not  be  finished  till  its 
northern  boundary,  where  it  is  a  tangent  fence  be  taken  down,  and 
sunk  out  of  sight  where  it  is  a  water-course,  neither  will  the  map  of 
Russia  be  finished  till  more  acquisitions  in  Europe  and  in  Tartary  are 
included  in  its  consolidated  empire;  for  the  Black  Sea  is  in  verity  a 
bottle,  of  which  Constantinople  is  the  cork  ;  the  cities  in  the  basin  of 
the  Oxus — the  theatre  of  momentous  events  in  past  times — are,  in 
these  latter  days,  only  way  stations.  The  mountain  water-shed  be 
tween  the  Oxus,  which  flows  north,  and  the  Indus,  which  flows  south, 
is  the  main  divide  between  India,  under  the  rule  of  a  foreign  country 
on  an  ocean  island  far  away,  and  Khanates  which  are  dovetailed 
parts  of  the  Russian  Empire,  with  commercial  interests  in  common 
with  Orenburg  and  Astrakhan ;  because  it  is  the  policy  of  Russia  to 
seek  and  strive  to  Russianize  wheresoever  it  reaches  and  holds  fast ; 
whereas,  Great  Britain  has,  in  no  sense,  Anglicized  India,  which  it 
manipulates  as  if  1,558,254  square  miles  of  territory  were  a  plan 
tation,  and  240,000,000  inhabitants  were  ^  many  chattels,  utilized 
for  the  profit  of  absentees,  less  the  cost  of  administration. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  1814-15  Congress  of  Vienna  could  not  be  repeated;  nor  can 
any  one  read  the  proceedings  of  that  body  in  Thiers'  "  Napoleon" 
without  indignation  that  Austria,  which  merited  so  little  from  Napo 
leon's  overthrow,  was  allotted  so  many  spoils,  largely  at  the  expense 


11 

of  France.  But,  since  1815,  Germany  has  been  organized  and  Italy- 
united;  Rome  is  restored  to  the  ruler  of  Italy,  and  Berlin  is  the  court 
of  a  great  power.  Russia,  like  the  United  States,  has  a  mission  to 
prosecute  and  frontiers  to  rectify ;  neither  of  the  two,  however,  has 
dreams  for  trans-ocean  empire.  England's  policy  has  made  "the  rich 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer,"  till  now  the  poor  of  the  British  Isles  are 
the  poorest  among  the  peoples  of  Europe ;  and  that  British  exaction 
in  India  makes  human  food  for  famine  in  that  naturally  bountiful 
land,  official  records  abundantly  prove  and  demonstrate.  In  "  The 
Nineteenth  Century,"  a  London  monthly  review,  dated  August,  1878, 
Miss  Florence  Nightingale,  in  an  article  which  is  an  indictment  of 
Great  Britain  for  wholesale  murder,  says :  "  In  Southern  India,  that 
is,  in  Mysore,  Bombay  and  Madras,  our  loss  in  one  year's  famine  has 
not  been  far  short  of  six  million  souls!"  Austria  is  held  together,  not 
by  a  fusion  of  particles,  like  a  car-wheel  cast  in  a  mould  on  a  foundry 
floor,  but  like  a  wheel  consisting  of  a  hub,  spokes  and  fellies,  made  by 
a  worker  in  wood,  and  held  together  by  an  iron  tire,  put  on  by  a 
blacksmith.  Turkey  made  conquest  in  Europe  with  the  sword,  and 
threatened  to  extirpate  Christian  civilization.  And  when,  finally,  its 
reverses  checked  its  progress,  its  conquests  were  still  large,  for  the 
Black  Sea  was  a  Turkish  lake,  entirely  surrounded  with  Turkish  terri 
tory,  till  1774,  when  Russia  made  its  frontier  on  the  Black  Sea,  west 
of  the  Crimea,  and,  in  1783,  added  the  Crimea  to  its  acquisitions. 

Through  subsequent  wars  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  Russia 
acquired  more  and  more  Black  Sea  border  from  Turkey ;  and  so 
Russia  obtained  territory  on  its  south  side  in  the  Black  Sea  basin  by 
conquest,  as  the  American  Union  obtained  territory  on  its  south  side 
in  the  Mississippi  basin,  by  purchase.  And  Europe  and  America  are 
both  bettered  thereby. 

What  Louisiana  was  that  Manitoba  is,  and  what  Louisiana  is — a 
State  in  the  Union,  abutting  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico — Manitoba  will 
be — a  State  of  the  Union  abutting  on  Hudson  Bay.  Then  the  Union 
will  have  the  sea  on  all  sides,  east,  west,  north  and  south;  for  its 
shores  will  be  washed  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Hudson  Bay ;  and  its  structural  anatomy  will  be 
complete  with  the  body  of  the  continent  divided  into  free  states,  united 
for  national  objects,  into  a  Union  which  has  withstood  the  trial  of 
foreign  wars  and  the  severer  test  of  civil  strife.  There  is  no  line  for 
the  partition  of  the  North  American  Union,  nor  for  the  permanent 
partition  of  the  North  American  Continent.  The  West,  the  core  of 
the  country,  will  have  at  command  and  in  use  facilities  for  communi 
cation  with  Lake  Winnipeg  via  Pembina,  as  it  now  has  with  Lake 
Michigan,  via  Peoria,  by  river  and  canal ;  and  with  Hudson  Bay,  by 


12 

rail,  as  it  now  has  with  the  Gulf  coast  and  the  Atlantic  coast,  by  rail, 
to  all  the  seaports  from  Texas  to  Maine. 

To  be  sure,  there  will  be  detractors  who  will  disparage  Hudson 
Bay,  depreciate  its  navigation  facilities  and  exaggerate  its  obstructions 
from  ice ;  but  it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  it  has  a  summer  season  of 
open  and  safe  navigation,  and  that  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  did 
utilize  it  throughout  its  long  and  eventful  history. 

In  sooth,  in  Smollett's  "History  of  England,"  on  the  reign  of 
George  the  Second  (time  1748),  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  it  is 
mentioned  that  Parliament  was  petitioned  "that  the  trade  of  Hudson 
Bay  might  be  laid  open;"  but  the  Company,  having  an  exclusive 
patent,  resisted  the  proposition,  which  was  given  the  go-by,  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  entail  "public  expense,"  the  aim  being  then,  as 
since,  to  make  the  St.  Lawrence  the  commercial  base  of  operations 
across  the  continent,  on  British  territory.  But  the  St  Lawrence 
route  is  an  open  navigation  for  only  half  of  the  year,  and  its  outlet 
is  high  up  in  the  north,  compared  with  the  Erie-Canal-Hudson-River 
route.  Hence,  for  Dominion  interests  to  demur  to  the  use  of  Hudson 
Bay  for  a  tide-water  terminus  for  overland  rail  and  inland  water-line 
traffic,  will  be  regarded  by  the  West,  when  the  subject  attracts  its 
serious  attention,  about  as  if  Buffalo  were  to  protest  that  western 
traffic  ought  not  be  forwarded  east  from  the  Mississippi  River,  via 
Florida  Strait. 

Precisely  as  the  western  part  of  Pennsylvania — an  eastern  State — 
is  in  the  Mississippi  basin,  and  Pittsburgh  has  its  main  market  in  the 
West,  so  the  northern  parts  of  Minnesota  and  Dakota — a  western 
State  and  a  western  Territory — are  in  the  Winnipeg  basin  ;  and  Lake 
Winnipeg  will  be  put  in  artificial  water-line  communication  with  the 
Mississippi  River  system  of  boat  navigation,  via  the  Red  River  of  the 
North,  to  the  Upper  Missouri  and  the  Upper  Mississippi,  exactly  as 
Lake  Michigan  is  connected  with  the  Mississippi  River  system  by  canal 
from  Chicago  to  the  Illinois  River. 

There  is  no  international  line  between  New  York  and  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  the  international  line  between  New  Orleans  and  Winnipeg 
will  be  obliterated ;  for  the  water-shed  between  Hudson  Bay  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  is  a  roof  with  little  inclination  and'  a  low  apex,  and 
which  sends  the  drainage  of  its  north  side  down  the  Nelson  River 
spout,  and  from  its  south  side  down  the  Mississippi  River  channel  to  a 
common  level  in  seas  which  commingle  their  waters  in  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  via  Hudson  Strait  and  the  Strait  of  Florida. 

The  French  Republic,  first  established  in  1792,  was  usurped  by 
Napoleon,  who  was  declared  First  Consul  in  1799,  and  was  proclaimed 
Emperor  and  crowned  by  the  Pope  in  1804.  The  second  Republic 


13 

was  organized  in  1848,  and  Louis  Napoleon  was  elected  President ; 
he  destroyed  it  by  the  coup  d'etat  December  2,  1851 ;  was  declared 
Emperor  December  2,  1852.  Coveting  the  Rhine  Provinces,  war  on 
Germany  was  declared  July  15,  1870;  on  the  2d  August  he  tele 
graphed  to  the  Empress  that  at  the  storming  of  the  heights  of  Saar- 
bruck  the  Prince  Imperial  "Louis  has  received  his  baptism  of  fire." 
Thirty  days  thereafter,  September  1,  he  surrendered  with  MacMahon's 
army  at  Sedan,  and  on  the  4th  September  the  Empire  succumbed  to 
the  popular  indignation,  and  the  Republic  was  proclaimed,  in  the  Hotel 
de  Ville.  And  the  third  Republic  is  a  field  oak  with  roots  and 
branches,  bearing  seed  acorns  for  other  soils  and  leaves  for  wreaths 
on  decoration  days. 

By  peace,  patience  and  perseverance  the  third  Republic  in  seven 
years  made  France  prosperous  and  potential ;  and  the  third  Republic 
is  built  to  stay  and  stand,  for  it  is  the  choice  of  France,  over  and  over 
again  confirmed,  as  a  necessity  to  its  harmony  and  happiness,  against 
the  remnants  and  shreds  of  dynastic  factions  made  up  of  Bourbons, 
Orleanists  and  Buorapartists,  some  of  whom  would  exterminate  where 
not  permitted  to  reconstruct,  with  old  material  found  in  ruins ;  the 
third  Republic,  however,  is  approved,  vindicated  and  justified,  as  the 
elections  continuously  attest ;  and  thus  the  third  Republic,  as  devel 
oped  under  the  quickening  power  of  Thiers  and  Gambetta,  and  a  host 
of  steadfast  men  wise  in  experience  and  keen  in  forecast,  is  a  cov 
enant  of  promise  against  a  background  of  despotism,  conspicuous  in 
its  colors  as  a  rainbow  against  a  cloud  after  a  storm. 

The  eight  provinces  which  (including  Newfoundland)  make  up  the 
Dominion  of  Canada  are  hitched  together  behind  a  pilot  motor  called 
a  Governor-General,  appointed  by  the  occupant  of  the  British  throne, 
as  cars  are  coupled  in  a  train  behind  a  steam  engine  called  a  loco 
motive,  and  do  not  constitute  a  congruous  governmental  machine, 
symmetrical  and  homogeneous  in  its  political  parts ;  whereas  the 
Union  may  be  likened  to  a  political  planetarium,  in  which  the  States 
move  in  orbits  with  the  harmony  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  where 
the  Constitution,  effulgent  as  the  sun,  is  a  source  of  light  to  the  nation 
and  a  beacon  of  hope  to  man,  under  clouded  skies,  in  other  lands. 

Nor  can  the  Dominion  machine  move  without  friction,  because  it  is 
engineered  in  London,  through  submarine  wire-shafting,  otherwise 
known  as  the  Atlantic  cable,  liable  to  abrasion  on  the  ridges  in  the 
ocean's  floor  and  accident  from  other  causes. 

The  States  of  the  Union,  moreover,  are  the  offspring  of  a  co-opera 
tive  compact  which  has  a  seat  of  reason,  inductive  arid  deductive,  in 
universal  education  in  public  schools  of  grades  that  rise  like  pyramidal 
steps  from  a  base  in  the  alphabet  to  a  summit  in  the  sciences,  and 


14 

a  nervous  system  sensitive  to  right  and  wrong,  and  quick  to  respond 
to  whatever  concerns  the  common  country  ;  for  no  matter  where  men 
aced  or  by  whom  assailed,  order  must  be  maintained  in  society  and 
unity  preserved  in  the  government ;  because  the  Union  is  a  political 
body  permeated  and  pervaded  with  the  influences  and  laws  of  attrac 
tion,  cohesion  and  gravitation,  which  jointly  fit  it  for  its  mission  among 
the  nations,  as  the  earth  is  adjusted  and  charged  for  perpetual  motion 
in  the  universe. 

The  Dominion,  in  contradistinction  to  the  Union,  is  a  new  evolu 
tion  from  an  old  idea  conceived  in  Europe,  and,  though  sent  hither  to 
hatch  mischief,  is  impotent  to  realize  expectations  either  in  practice 
or  prospect,  as  where  a  reptile  hatched  out  of  a  snake's  egg,  put  into 
a  hen's  nest  to  scatter  a  brood  of  chickens,  was  scotched  before  it  had 
fangs  to  bite. 

True,  the  Dominion  is  susceptible  of  congelation  into  a  solid  mass 
by  the  agency  of  cold  in  winter,  when  it  is  cemented  with  ice  and 
asleep  under  the  snow.  In  midsummer,  however,  when  the  Winnipeg 
basin  is  in  its  beauty,  there  is  a  partial  thaw  in  the  walrus  region,  and 
ice-cakes,  frozen  in  the  wind  from  the  north  pole,  drift  out  through  the 
sounds  and  channels  into  Baffin  Bay  and  Davis  Strait,  and  float  down 
the  coast  in  the  arctic  current,  making  the  air  thick  with  fog  and  the 
provincial  nose  "blue"  as  the  sky  overhead,  when  the  weather  is 
exceptionally  clear. 

And  if  the  Dominion,  in  a  political  thaw,  were  to  break  into  pieces 
like  the  principal  staple  of  its  walrus  region,  British  Columbia  would 
drift  into  the  Union  via  Puget  Sound,  Manitoba  would  tie  fast  to 
Minnesota,  and  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick  would  enter  through 
open  doors  into  the  sisterhood  of  New  England  States,  for  political 
worship  at  a  common  national  shrine. 

Halifax  would  then  in  verity  be  the  east  portal  open  to  Europe,  as 
San  Francisco  is  the  west  portal  of  America  open  to  Asia.  And  as 
Halifax  is  on  and  of  the  seaboard,  not  in  nor  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  it 
ought  to  aspire  to  be  the  front  door  of  the  Union  rather  than  the  side 
door  of  the  Dominion,  for  alternative  use  in  winter  time,  when  the 
St.  Lawrence,  its  main  artery,  is  closed  with  ice  against  Quebec  and 
Montreal. 

Halifax,  notwithstanding  that  it  was  founded  in  1749,  a  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  years  ago,  is  to-day  surpassed  in  population  by  more 
than  thirty  cities  in  the  United  States,  and  by  three  cities  in  the 
Dominion  (Quebec,  Montreal  and  Toronto),  one  on  Lake  Ontario,  two 
on  the  St.  Lawrence,  all  rival  arid  antagonistic  to  Halifax,  when  not 
under  embargo  from  ice.  Contrast  Halifax,  as  the  Atlantic  end  of  an 
overland  railway  route  through  the  Union  to  the  Pacific  in  California, 


15 

with  the  projected  overland  railway  route  through  the  Dominion  to 
the  Pacific  in  British  Columbia.  Consider  Halifax  as  a  winter  harbor 
for  its  three  Dominion  rivals,  that  evade  it  when  navigation  is  open, 
with  Halifax  in  the  "mind's  eye"  as  a  naval  station,  commercial 
dock  and  warehouse  in  the  Union,  at  the  shortest  ferry  across  the 
ocean  that  divides  the  new  world  from  the  old.  Halifax  in  the  Do 
minion  is  out  of  its  legitimate  sphere,  like  a  ship  caught  in  ice  and 
borne  away  from  its  true  destination. 

But  reaction  is  not  uncommon  in  subject  populations,  where  the 
yoke  galls  man,  wisely  made  less  patient  than  the  ox,  so  that  he  may 
emancipate  himself  out  of  servitude  to  mortals  of  kindred  clay,  mould 
and  manufacture,  for  sometimes  the  loftiest  in  the  sight  of  the  world 
are  the  lowliest  seen  from  heaven.  The  words  devil  and  tyrant  are 
synonymous,  because  both  typify  the  spirit  of  evil ;  and  as  it  is  mer 
itorious  to  cast  out  a  devil,  so  is  it  meritorious  to  overthrow  a  tyrant 
or  a  despotism.  Therefore,  where  there  is  oppression,  revolution  is  a 
righteous  remedy ;  and  forced  provincial  allegiance  is  oppression, 
because  the  provincial  condition  differs  from  the  national  condition  as 
apprenticeship  differs  from  journeymanship,  with  the  option  of  mas 
tership  open  with  conditions  common  to  all.  In  the  Union  a  citizen 
may  be  content  to  vote,  or  he  may  aspire  to  candidateship,  as  an 
apprentice,  after  having  served  out  his  time,  may  be  content  to  work 
for  an  employer  or  aspire  to  mastership  in  his  calling  or  art ;  and 
Nova  Scotia,  having  first  refused  to  enter  the  Dominion,  subsequently 
consented  to  be  counted  in  with  Quebec  and  Ontario,  with  which 
provinces  it  has  little  affiliation  and  not  much  intertrade.  Indeed, 
in  the  company  of  the  cities  of.  Quebec  and  Montreal  at  Ottawa,  Hal 
ifax  is  not  unlike  a  third  person  present  where  there  are  two  friends 
mutually  anxious  for  a  private  conversation. 

New  Brunswick  and  Maine  abut  against  each  other,  divided  by  a 
treaty  fence,  the  first  a  province  with  a  population  of  285,594  in 
1871,  the  latter  a  State  with  a  population  of  626,915  in  1870.  New 
Brunswick  was  settled  by  the  French  in  1639.  Maine  was  admitted 
into  the  Union  in  1820. 

Nova  Scotia  was  visited  by  Europeans  in  1497  and  colonized  in 
1604,  sixteen  years  before  the  first  settlement  in  Massachusetts  was 
made  by  the  Puritans  at  Plymouth  Bock.  Nova  Scotia,  too,  has 
developed  coal  deposits,  Massachusetts  has  none;  and  yet  in  1870 
Massachusetts  contained  1,457,351  of  population  on  7800  square 
miles  of  territory,  against.  387,800  of  population  in  Nova  Scotia  on 
18,600  square  miles  of  territory.  Boston,  the  principal  city  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  has  New  York  and  the  Hudson  River  between  it  and  the 
West,  its  main  market,  and  back  of  Boston  is  Montreal,  with  commu- 


16 

nications  west  into  the  interior  and  east  to  the  seacoast.  Contrast 
Massachusetts  with  Nova  Scotia,  Boston  with  Halifax,  and  credit  the 
difference  in  favor  of  the  American  citizen  over  the  British  subject, 
to  the  political  circumstance  that  Massachusetts  is  a  sovereign  State 
loyal  to  free  institutions,  Nova  Scotia  a  subject  colony  allegiant  to  a 
foreign  kingdom  twenty-five  hundred  miles  away. 

The  "United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland"  contains 
Britons  in  England,  Scotland  and  Wales,  and  Irishmen  in  Ireland. 
But  a  Nova  Scotian  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  is  a  provincialist,  and 
the  Dominion  is  a  colonial  dependence,  not  an  independent  nation. 

In  1283  Wales  was  finally  subdued  by  England  and  annexed  by 
conquest;  and  yet  there  are  at  this  day  thousands  in  Wales  who  use 
the  ancestral  tongue  and  do  not  understand  the  English  language. 
The  Scotchman  is  never  an  Englishman,  though  he  may  be  more  pro 
nouncedly  British  than  English  or  Welsh  Britons. 

In  the  Union  the  native-born  and  the  adopted  from  abroad  bear 
one  common  name — American  citizen.  The  American  race,  made  up 
of  many  breeds  and  crosses  by  immigration  and  intermarriage  (but 
not  by  invasion  like  that  of  William  the  Norman,  who  stayed  where 
he  conquered),  dominates  North  America  with  free  institutions,  along 
side  of  which  the  European  transplant  will  fail  of  propagation  and  die 
of  frost  in  the  bud. 

Hudson  Bay  is  to  the  hydrographic  basin  of  Lake  Winnipeg,  which 
discharges  its  waters  down  the  Nelson  River,  precisely  what  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  is  to  the  basin  bounded  on  the  east  and  west  by  the  Rocky 
and  Allegheny  Mountains,  which  sends  its  waters  down  the  Missis 
sippi  River. 

And  Hudson  Strait  is  the  Seagate  of  the  Saskatchewan  Valley  via 
Lake  Winnipeg,  as  Florida  Strait  is  the  Seagate  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  via  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

The  St.  Lawrence  is  a  narrow  basin,  and  the  group  of  connected 
lakes  which  empty  into  it,  albeit  they  are  inland  seas  in  a  fresh-water 
navigation  sense,  drains  but  an  inconsiderable  area  of  Dominion  ter 
ritory,  compared  with  the  area  of  Manitoba  territory  in  the  basin  of 
Lake  Winnipeg. 

Moreover,  Lake  Erie,  which  is  the  distributing  pool  of  the  three 
lakes  west  and  northwest  of  it,  is  connected  with  the  Hudson  River 
by  the  famous  Erie  Canal — an  artificial  work  equivalent  to  a  river  in 
capacity  and  importance;  and  exactly  as  Lake  Erie  is  connected  with 
the  Hudson  River  by  a  water-line  of  cheap  and  easy  navigation,  so 
may  Lake  Winnipeg  be  connected  with  the  Mississippi  River  system 
of  boat  navigation  via  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  and,  it  may  be, 
Lake  Traverse  and  the  Minnesota  River  Valley.  From  Lake  Tra- 


17 

verse,  considered  as  a  summit  reservoir,  the  descent  north  to  Lake 
Winnipeg  is  only  366  feet,  and  the  descent  south  to  the  Mississippi 
River  at  the  mouth  of  Minnesota  River  is  only  299  feet.  The  mode 
rate  altitude  of  the  Lake  Traverse  summit-level  establishes  the  prac 
ticality  of  artificial  navigation  between  the  Minnesota  River  and  the 
Red  River  of  the  North ;  but  as  the  paramount  consideration  is  a 
boat  communication  between  the  Mississippi  River  and  Lake  Winni 
peg,  the  best  route  is  a  question  which  only  intelligent  engineering 
and  summit-level  water  supply  can  decide. 
Here  are  the  elevations  above  sea-level : — 

Feet. 

Lake  Traverse,  at  head- waters  of  Minnesota  River  and  the  Red 

River  of  the  North,          .    '      .         .         .         .         .         .  994 

Lake  Winnipeg,  into  which  Red  River  empties,          .         .         .  628 

Difference  of  elevation  in  about  650  miles  distance,  .         .         .  366 

Lake  Traverse,  as  before, 994 

Mississippi  River,  at  mouth  of  Minnesota  River,        .         .         .  695 

Difference  of  elevation  in  256  miles, 299 

Red  River,  low-water  mark,  at  Moorhead,  where  Northern  Pacific 

Railroad  crosses  it,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  875 

Lake  Winnipeg,  as  before,        .         .         .  .         .         .  628 

Red  River,  at  Moorhead,  above  Lake  Winnipeg,        .         .         .  247 

Lake  Traverse,  as  before,          .         .         .         .         .         .         .  994 

Red  River,  at  Moorhead,  as  before,  .....  875 

Elevation  of  Lake  Traverse  above  Red  River,  at  Moorhead,       .  119 

Moorhead  is  the  head  of  steamboat  navigation  and  Breckenridge 
the  head  of  boat  navigation  on  the  Red  River  of  the  North. 

Canal  excavation  in  the  prairie  bottom  into  which  the  Red  River 
of  the  North  cut  its  channel  would  be  easy  work,  and  would  shorten 
distance  south  of  Moorhead. 

Indeed,  by  a  bold  cut,  like  the  one  through  the  peninsula  summit 
on  the  Chesapeake  and  Delaware  Canal,  a  great  saving  of  distance 
may  be  accomplished  between  the  Red  River  of  the  North  and  the 
Mississippi  and  Missouri  Rivers,  or  either  of  them.  Canals  that  con 
nect  navigable  waters  have  lost  none  of  their  consequence,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  annually  acquire  additional  importance,  as  witness  the  Dela 
ware  and  Raritan  Canal  between  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  the 
Chesapeake  and  Delaware  Canal,  the  Erie  Canal,  the  Welland  Canal, 
and  the  Illinois  and  Lake  Michigan  Canal. 

2  / 


18 

The  Welland  Canal,  a  Dominion  work  which  connects  Lake  Ontario 
with  Lake  Erie,  has  330  feet  of  lockage  in  27  miles  of  distance  ;  and 
so  there  are  31  more  feet  of  elevation  between  Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie 
than  there  are  between  the  Mississippi  River  at  the  mouth  of  the  Min 
nesota  River  and  Traverse  Lake,  in  a  distance  of  256  miles,  and  211 
more  feet  of  elevation  between  Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie  than  between 
Traverse  Lake  and  Red  River  at  Moorhead. 

The  Red  River  of  the  North  has  an  average  descent  of  less  than 
seven  inches  in  the  mile ;  is  navigable  for  steamboats  275  miles,  and 
available  for  small  boats  and  barges  a  longer  distance.  The  Red 
River  of  the  North  can  be  utilized  for  the  joint  accommodation  and 
mutual  interest  of  Winnipeg,  Pembina  and  St.  Paul,  and  other  centres 
of  inland  intertrade.  Railroad  bridges  across  it,  but  a  few  feet  above 
high-water  mark,  can  be  elevated  or  provided  with  draws  as  on  other 
rivers. 

The  Northwest  had  a  very  small  population  when  the  Erie  Canal 
was  opened  in  1825,  but  look  now  at  its  tonnage  and  consider  its  im 
portance  as  an  artery  of  trade.  And  from  Albany  and  Buffalo  turn 
to  St.  Paul  and  Winnipeg ;  cast  the  horoscope  of  Minnesota,  and  dis 
cern  first  a  million,  next  two  millions,  and  after  that  more  millions  of 
population,  with  St.  Paul  expanded  into  an  emporium  of  trade  cor 
respondingly  conspicuous,  boats  plying  the  navigable  water  route  and 
cars  speeding  the  railway  track  between  St.  Paul  and  Winnipeg ; 
Manitoba  a  State  of  the  Union,  and  the  population  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  counted  by  more  millions  than  are  at  this  time  in  North 
America,  north  of  Mexico  ;  not  crowded  as  in  China  proper,  however, 
where  in  an  area  of  1,534,953  square  miles  there  are  405,213,152 
human  beings,  the  territory  occupied  being  less  than  half  the  size 
of  the  United  States ;  and  where,  in  the  province  of  Ganhwuy,  on 
58,468  square  miles,  there  were  years  ago  36,596,858  inhabitants; 
as  close  together  and  densely  packed  almost  as  honey  bees  in  a  hive, 
and  not  unlike  the  honey-bee-housekeepers  in  industry  to  provide  and 
economy  to  save ;  but  in  the  ratio  of  Europe  west  of  the  longitude  of 
Belgrade  and  Warsaw,  comprising  Germany,  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
Belgium,  Holland,  and  Great  Britain. 

Nor  is  there  fancy  or  exaggeration  in  this  prospect ;  for  already 
in  matters  appertaining  to  middle  North  America  the  word  West — a 
term  of  magnitude  like  the  term  East  in  Europe  applied  to  Asia — has 
absorbed  the  far  west,  southwest  and  northwest,  and,  along  with  the 
basin  of  the  Mississippi  River,  includes  the  basins  of  the  lakes  west 
of  Niagara  Falls,  and  all  the  region  between  salt  water  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  Hudson  Bay. 

From  Washington,  New  Mexico  and  Montana,  and  all  between,  are 


19 

in  the  West ;  as  from  London,  Hindostan  and  Siberia,  and  all  between 
and  beyond,  are  in  the  East. 

The  imagination  is  not  chargeable  with  extravagance  where  predic 
tion  has  been  surpassed  by  performance  and  dreams  have  been  real-    . 
ized  in  persons  and  things  substantial. 

Consider  :  A  zone  checkered  with  States  across  the  continent  where 
it  is  three  thousand  miles  across,  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
oceans  ;  an  interior  basin,  with  thirty-six  degrees  of  longitude  between 
its  rim  in  the  Alleghany  Mountain  in  Pennsylvania  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains  in  Montana ;  its  diameter  one-tenth  the  circumference  of  the 
globe ;  its  area  ten  times  the  size  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and 
six  times  the  size  of  France ;  and  which  interior  basin  between  moun 
tain  watersheds,  if  peopled  in  the  ratio  per  square  mile  of  France  in 
1872,  would  contain  216,000,000  of  inhabitants  ;  a  basin  dotted  with 
cities  from  Pittsburgh  to  Denver,  from  New  Orleans  to  St.  Paul,  into 
which  cities  are  gathered  for  market  the  plenteous  harvests  from 
prairies  and  plains,  from  valleys  with  rivers  in  their  laps,  and  from 
table  lands  among  the  mountains;  a  belt  of  earth  made  luxuriant  and 
bountiful  by  nature,  containing  millions  of  acres  under  tillage,  pro 
ducing  crops  not  equalled  in  other  climes,  and  millions  of  acres  open 
for  settlement  and  cultivation  to  immigrants  from  foreign  lands,  and 
to  native  citizens  prone  to  withdraw  from  large  towns  and  small 
farms,  to  enjoy  a  preferred  life  on  the  frontier,  remote  from  neighbor 
hood  and  noise. 


CHAPTER   III. 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  there  was  no  State  west 
of  Pennsylvania,  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  Since  January  1,  1802, 
twenty-two  new  States  have  been  admitted  into  the  Union — one  for 
every  three  years.  At  the  date  mentioned,  Pennsylvania  was  the 
frontier  State  on  the  fortieth  parallel  of  north  latitude ;  but  there  are 
now  on  that  geographical  line,  west  of  the  "  Keystone"  of  the  original 
thirteen  States  that  won  independence  and  framed  the  Constitution — 
twin  achievements  and  a  double  fame — eight  States  and  one  Territory, 
admitted  at  these  dates,  to  wit : 


Ohio,  1802 

Indiana,  1816 

Illinois,  1818 


Missouri,          1821 
Kansas,  1861 

Colorado,          1876 


Nevada,  1864 

California,          1850 
Utah,  Ter.,         1850 


20 


North  of  the  fortieth  parallel,  since  1800,  there  have  been  six 
States  and  six  Territories  admitted,  at  these  dates,  to  wit : 


Michigan,  1837 

Wisconsin,  1847 

Minnesota,  1857 

Iowa,  1845 


Nebraska,  1867 

Oregon,  1859 

Dakota,  Ter.,  1861 

Montana,  Ter.,  1864 


Area  of  the  thirteen  original  States,     . 

Area  of  the  thirty-eight   States  and  eleven 

Territories,  ...... 


Idaho,  Ter.,  1863 

Washington,  Ter.,  1853 

Wyoming,  Ter.,  1868 

Alaska,  Ter.,  1868 

318,572  square  miles. 


3,580,238 


5,308,483 


In  1800  there  were  sixteen  States  in  the  Union,  and  the 
population  was  ....... 

In  1870  there  were  thirty-seven  States  and  twelve  Terri 

tories  in  the  Union,  and  the  population  was  .  .  38,558,371 

In  1878  there  are  thirty-eight  States  and  eleven  Terri 

tories  in  the  Union,  and  the  estimated  population  is  47.000,000 

Minnesota  State  and  Dakota  Territory  both  abut  on  Manitoba; 
and  how  rapidly  the  public  lands  in  Minnesota  and  Dakota  are  being 
disposed  of  by  the  United  States  appears  in  the  following  compara 
tive  statement  for  the  fiscal  years  ended  June  30,  1877,  and  June  30, 
1878,  the  same  price  per  acre  prevailing  in  both  years  : 


Minnesota, 
Dakota, 

Total, 


Total,  1878. 

$1,041,203  12 
1,461,801  73 

$2,503,004  85 


Total,  1877. 

$279,847  02 
218,378  20 

$498,225  22 


Increase. 

$761,356  10 
1,243,423  53 

f2,004,779  63 


Increase  in  one  year,  four  hundred  and  two  (402)  per  cent. 

In  British  America  a  very  large  percentage  of  the  territory  is  un- 
cultivable ;  and  north  of  the  sixtieth  parallel  of  latitude  the  popula 
tion  will  always  be  exceedingly  sparse,  if  human  beings  only  be 
enumerated,  and  migratory  fauna,  fish  and  fowl  not  counted. 

South  of  Texas  the  coast  lines  converge  to  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuan- 
tepec,  and  at  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  they  are  but  a  span  apart. 

In  the  manifested  destiny  of  nations  North  America  is  reserved  for 
free  institutions,  for  within  it  monarchy  has  perished  in  ignominy  each 
time  that  it  was  tried  ;  and  the  principal  success  in  North  America  is 
the  Republic  of  the  United  States,  which  comprises  its  best  parts,  and 
will  include  more  and  more  of  it,  from  time  to  time,  howsoever  British 
diplomacy  may  plot  to  prevent.  For  no  dynasty  can  be  exalted  in 
America,  where  the  supreme  power  is  in  the  people,  who  put  lunatics 
in  infirmaries,  and  disbelieve  in  thrones  and  titles,  and  where  kings 


21 

and  princes  are  tolerated  only  in  mimic  parts  in  theatrical  amusements. 
Aged  penitents  who  were  peculators  and  speculators  before  fortune 
made  them  conservatives,  sycophants  destitute  of  manhood  pride,  and 
title-worshipping  snobs  and  obsequious  flunkeys  may  pretend  other 
wise,  and  ask  for  more  license  from  London ;  but  the  precedents  fur 
nished  by  Mexico  are  fitted  for  Canada. 

Personally,  Maximilian  was  unexceptionable;  but  politically,  he 
was  intolerable,  and  in  the  order  of  events  fell  a  victim  to  one  of  the 
messengers  of  death  imported  in  his  behalf  to  make  Mexicans  his  sub 
jects  by  force  of  arms.  Subjects  in  America,  forsooth  !  The  word  may 
be  blotted  out  of  the  politics  of  Europe,  for  the  citizen  may  succeed  the 
subject  in  Europe,  as  well  outside  as  inside  of  France,  where  all  forms 
of  government  have  had  trial  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  where  the  Re 
public,  which,  in  1870,  succeeded  the  empire,  is  a  pronounced  success, 
with  a  record  that  is  a  marvel  among  the  nations. 

Mexico,  as  a  Republic,  has  a  mission  in  .America,  where  the  two 
Republics  do  not  jostle  each  other,  for  there  is  room  for  two,  side  by 
side.  The  city  of  Mexico  is  well  situated  for  communication  with  the 
interior  country  and  the  sea  coasts ;  whereas,  Ottawa,  the  capital  of 
the  temporary  Dominion  of  Canada,  distant  only  fifty-five  miles  from 
Ogdensburg,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  will  be  twenty-six  hundred 
miles  distant  from  the  Pacific  waters,  by  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway, 
when  built,  from  Ottawa  to  Port  Moody,  in  British  Columbia  !  The 
railways  of  the  Dominion,  financially  considered,  may  have  had  blos 
soms  in  prospectuses,  but  have  not  had  fruits  in  profits;  but,  bad  as 
the  fiscal  showing  is  in  the  official  reports  of  roads  years  in  use,  there 
will  be  still  less  comfort  derived  from  the  earnings  of  the  Canada 
Pacific  Railway,  to  offset  its  prodigious  cost ;  for  its  route,  like  much 
of  the  route  of  the  Inter-Colonial  Railway,  is  through  a  region  of 
minimum  local  resources;  and  what  its  through  traffic  is  to  consist  of, 
and  whence  it  is  to  come,  is  an  inquiry  adjourned  till  after  it  shall 
have  been  inaugurated,  and  then — what  ?  Why,  then,  the  farce 
annually  repeated  at  the  Canada  Grand  Trunk  Railway  meeting  will 
be  played  simultaneously  on  two  stages,  where  pay-roll  officials  are 
the  actors  and  investors  make  up  the  audience  of  dupes. 

A  railway  from  Frazer  River  southward  to  a  connection  with  a  line 
to  San  Francisco  would  be  worth  more  to  British  Columbia  than  the 
Canada  Pacific  Railway  can  be,  east  of  Manitoba ;  and  the  same  is 
true  of  Manitoba  and  the  railway  via  Winnipeg  and  Pembina,  against 
the  Canada  Pacific  Railway  extended  east  of  the  Red  River  of  the 
North  to  Ottawa. 

Contemplate  the  intertrade  of  the  Atlantic  States,  and  think  of 
British  Columbia  along  with  Washington  Territory  and  the  States  of 


22 

Oregon  and  California.  Think  of  the  intertrade  between  Ohio  river 
towns  and  New  Orleans  and  throughout  the  Mississippi  basin,  from 
Pittsburgh  to  Denver,  and  consider  Manitoba  as  a  State  in  sympathy 
with  Minnesota  and  in  cooperation  with  other  States,  down  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  From  Manitoba  the  outlook  is  south,  not  east,  and  the 
interest  of  Manitoba  is — and  its  aspirations  ought  to  be — to  advance 
from  an  inland  province  into  a  maritime  State  like  Louisiana. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  hypothesis  founded  on  ancient  watermarks  and  topo 
graphical  indications  that  time  was  when  the  surface  of  Lake  Win 
nipeg  was  higher  than  its  present  level,  the  prairie  bottom  of  Manitoba 
under  water,  and  the  outflow  to  the  sea  via  Traverse  Lake  and  down 
the  Minnesota  valley  into  the  Mississippi  River,  till  a  break  was  made 
through  the  ridge  which  walled  in  the  great  reservoir  on  its  north 
side,  and  the  channel  in  which  flows  Nelson  River  was  opened  to  Hud 
son  Bay,  now  Middle  Sea. 

Chautauqua  Lake,  in  the  southwest  corner  of  New  York,  is  1306 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea  and  738  feet  above  the  level  of  Lake 
Erie,  from  which  it  is  only  seven  miles  distant ;  but  Chautauqua  Lake 
discharges  its  waters  not  into  Lake  Erie,  seven  miles  distant,  but  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  twenty-four  hundred  miles  away,  via  the  Alle 
gheny,  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers. 

But,  whether  the  waters  of  Lake  Winnipeg  priorily  flowed  south, 
down  a  gentle  incline,  or  escaped  north,  down  falls  and  rapids,  the 
substantial  fact  remains,  that  Manitoba  may  be  put  in  navigable  com 
munication  with  the  Mississippi  River,  so  that  boats  may  be  passed 
from  Winnipeg  to  St.  Paul,  and  even  from  Hudson  Bay  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico ;  as  boats  can  now  navigate  a  continuous  water-route  between 
New  Orleans  and  Quebec,  via  the  Illinois  River  and  the  canal  thence 
to  Chicago,  whence  the  way  is  open  to  the  lower  St.  Lawrence. 

Lake  Winnipeg  may  be  made  a  commercial  dock  or  pool  like  Lake 
Erie,  if  its  navigation  be  connected  by  canal  with  the  river  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  Rivers,  as  Lake  Erie  is  connected  with 
tide-water  in  the  St.  Lawrence,  via  the  Welland  Canal,  and  with  the 
Hudson  River  by  the  Erie  Canal,  a  work  to  which  New  York  State  is 
indebted  for  its  "empire"  rank,  and  New  York  city  for.  its  commercial 
supremacy. 

The  Saskatchewan  and  the  Missouri  are  kindred  rivers,  whose 
sources  are  near  together  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  the  communi 
ties  along  the  sister  river  banks  will  develop  affinities  for  intertrade 
that  will  promote  commercial  intercourse  and  political  co-partnership ; 
for  the  Frazer  River  and  the  Columbia  River,  the  Missouri  River  and 
the  Saskatchewan  River,  like  the  rivers  which  flow  from  fountains 
among  the  peaks  of  the  Allegheny  Mountain,  down  both  its  sides, 


23 

all  drain  parts  of  one  country,  pervaded  by  a  common  sympathy,  which 
an  artificial  line  cannot  dissever  nor  distract. 

St.  Paul  is  an  important  steamboat  terminus  and  a  conspicuous 
centre  of  railway  traffic.  From  St.  Paul  there  are  1940  miles  of 
steamboat  navigation  southward  to  New  Orleans,  and  1913  miles  of 
steamboat  navigation  eastward  to  Pittsburgh.  On  the  Mississippi 
river  and  its  principal  tributaries  there  are  16,674  miles  of  river  navi 
gation.  Verily,  the  Mississippi  River  system  is  an  inland  wonder. 

Surely  to  Manitoba  it  is  of  paramount  importance  that  from  Lake 
Winnipeg  there  should  be  a  boat  navigation  to  the  Mississippi  River, 
as  there  is  from  Lake  Michigan  a  boat  navigation  to  the  Mississippi 
River.  The  level  of  Traverse  Lake  is  only  299  feet  above  the  Mis 
sissippi  River  at  St.  Paul,  and  366  feet  above  Lake  Winnipeg;  but 
only  119  feet,  or  thirty-three  per  cent,  of  the  latter  difference  would 
have  to  be  overcome  by  lockage,  because  to  Moorhead  the  Red  River 
of  the  North  is  a  steamboat  navigation,  and  at  Moorhead  the  sur 
face  of  Red  River  is  247  feet  above  its  surface  at  its  mouth  in  Lake 
Winnipeg. 

Between  Buffalo  and  Albany,  on  the  famous  Erie  Canal,  there  are 
642  feet  of  lockage,  and  from  Lake  Erie  to  Montreal  there  are  568 
feet  of  lockage. 

Between  the  head  of  steamboat  navigation  at  Moorhead,  on  the 
Red  River  of  the  North,  and  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Mississippi 
River  at  the  mouth  of  the  Minnesota  River,  the  lockage  would  be  only 
418  feet,  150  feet  less  than  the  lockage  between  the  Lake  Erie  head 
of  the  Welland  Canal  and  Montreal  on  the  St.  Lawrence. 

No  one  can  examine  the  question  of  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi 
main  river  and  its  tributaries  and  not  be  convinced  that  the  Red 
River  of  the  North,  which  is  divided  from  the  affluents  of  the  Missis 
sippi  River  and  the  Missouri  River  by  a  phenomenally  low  prairie 
divide  with  innumerable  lakes,  will  be  connected  by  canal  with  the 
navigable  streams  so  very  near  it  on  both  sides,  east  and  west. 

Between  Fort  Garry,  on  Red  River,  and  Lake  Superior,  the  Do 
minion  government  has  in  operation  a  route  consisting  of  140  miles 
of  road,  8  miles  of  portages  and  304  miles  of  water  navigation  ;  total 
length  452  miles.  The  summit-level  swamp  on  this  route,  distant  74 
miles  from  Prince  Arthur  Landing,  Lake  Superior,  is  1483  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea,  and  489  feet  higher  than  Lake  Traverse  above 
the  sea;  so  that  from  the  swamp  summit  to  Lake  Superior,  which 
latter  is  600  feet  above  the  sea,  there  is  a  descent  of  883  feet,  against 
299  feet  from  Lake  Traverse  summit  to  the  Mississippi  River. 

During  the  year  ended  June  30,  1876,  there  were  carried  over  the 
Dominion  summer  route,  between  Lake  Superior  and  Fort  Garry, 


24 

2172  passengers,  a  small  number,  considering  the  force  employed  on 
the  Canada  Pacific  Railway,  additional  to  resident  population,  emi 
grants  going  out  and  immigrants  coming  in. 

During  the  year  ended  June  30,  1876,  the  Northern  Pacific  Rail 
road  carried  3645  passengers  to  and  6951  passengers  from  Moorhead 
on  Red  River. 

By  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway  route  the  distance  from  Fort  Garry 
on  Red  River  to  Lake  Superior  at  Fort  William  is  410  miles.  From 
Fort  Garry  the  air-line  distance  is  50  miles  less  to  Duluth  in  Min 
nesota  than  to  Fort  William  in  Ontario. 

From  Fort  Garry  the  railroad  distances  south  and  east  are :  To 
the  Minnesota  line,  by  the  Pembina  branch,  85  miles  ;  to  Brecken- 
ridge  on  Red  River,  287  miles ;  to  St.  Paul  on  the  Mississippi  River, 
504  miles ;  from  St.  Paul  to  Chicago,  409  miles ;  Fort  Garry  via 
Breckenridge  and  St.  Paul  to  Chicago,  913  miles.  The  distance  by 
rail  between  Chicago  and  Fort  Garry  can  be  shortened  a  hundred 
miles  via  Milwaukee  and  Thomson. 

From  Chicago  to  New  York  by  shortest  route  via  Pittsburgh  and 
Philadelphia,  operated  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  the 
distance  is  913  miles,  precisely  the  same  as  the  distance  from  Chicago 
via  St.  Paul  and  Breckenridge  to  lower  Fort  Garry,  where  the  Canada 
Pacific  Railway  crosses  Red  River.  Total  distance  from  Fort  Garry 
through  Breckenridge,  St.  Paul,  Chicago  and  Philadelphia,  to  New 
York  city,  1826  miles.  From  Fort  Garry  to  Halifax  by  Canada 
Pacific  and  Intercolonial  Railways  via  Ottawa,  Montreal  and  Quebec, 
the  distance  is  2308  miles,  all  on  Dominion  territory. 

As,  however,  the  St.  Lawrence  is  ice-bound  for  half  the  year,  com 
prising  a  part  of  autumn,  the  whole  of  winter,  and  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  spring,  the  ports  of  Montreal  and  Quebec  are  of  course 
closed  to  navigation  all  that  time ;  and  as  Halifax  is  482  miles  farther 
distant  than  New  York  city  from  Fort  Garry,  the  foreign  trade  of 
Manitoba,  if  allowed  to  choose  its  own  channel,  will  be  across  Min 
nesota  and  through  Union  seaports  to  Europe. 

The  ambition  to  have  a  through  route  on  Dominion  territory  is, 
therefore,  beset  with  drawbacks  to  realization  insurmountable  in  prac 
tice.  The  untrammelled  intertrade  between  the  States  of  the  Union 
will  no.t  be  overlooked  by  Manitoba,  which  will  hardly  consent  to  be 
"  bottled  "  for  political  reasons  formulated  at  Ottawa,  by  a  propaganda 
that  would  transplant  to  the  new  world  the  political  society  shams  of 
the  old  world,  outside  of  Switzerland  and  France. 

Why  should  England  endure  a  titled  aristocracy  that  withholds 
from  cultivation  millions  of  acres  in  a  country  that  imports  much  of 
its  breadstuffs,  pays  but  little  tax  on  landed  estate,  arrogates  social 


25 

superiority,  enjoys  the  highest  office  honors,  and  revels  in  fashionable 
dissipation,  with  wealth  to  command  the  luxuries  of  life,  where  com 
forts  are  so  scarce  among  the  masses  ? 

In  the  Union  only  commodities  are  classified,  and  all  honors  and 
opportunities  are  open  to  free  competition.  In  Great  Britain  title 
and  position  are  inherited  and  transmitted,  and  there  the  ballot  can  do 
but  little  good  until  the  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entail  be  repealed. 

Under  a  dynasty,  man-power,  horse-power,  and  steam-power  are  all 
alike  considered  available  for  utilization  in  the  economy  of  govern 
ment.  And  thus  man,  "  immortal  man,  made  in  the  image  of  his 
Maker,"  is  degraded  to  a  brute  and  equated  to  a  machine.  His 
natural  rights  are  restricted  beyond  the  necessities  of  a  legal  code 
essential  for  order  and  administration,  and  his  privileges  are  circum 
scribed  to  a  minimum  radius  of  option  ;  for  he  is  the  subject  of  the 
crown,  and  is  told  to  be  thankful  for  the  royal  condescension  that 
makes  life  bearable,  under  conditions  which  provide  palaces  and  parks 
for  inheritors  of  ancestral  distinctions,  life  tenures,  and  entailed 
estates,  and  reduce  the  millions  to  an  existence  beset  with  more 
penalties  than  compensations,  often  clouded  by  day,- seldom  bright  by 
night ;  a  purgatorial  life  between  a  worse  condition  under  barbarism 
and  a  better  condition  under  uniform  rights. 

In  a  republic  birthright  is  equality  under  the  law,  and  free  compe 
tition  for  the  public  offices  and  honors  and  in  the  professions  and 
pursuits. 

In  a  monarchy  titles  and  honors  are  reserved  out  of  the  common 
stock  of  the  state,  which  in  a  republic  comprises  the  whole  people, 
whereas  in  a  monarchy  the  state  is  an  establishment  administered  and 
enjoyed  by  a  law-favored  class ;  an  aristocracy  not  of  mind  or  supe 
riority  of  brain  capacity,  but  of  birth  under  a  dynastic  code  wherein 
prerogatives  are  perpetuated,  contrary  to  the  republican  practice  and 
the  wise  course  of  nature  which  with  impartial  hand  scatters  its  gifts  in 
the  soils  and  rocks,  where  they  reward  the  finder  according  as  he 
earns  success  by  his  own  industry  and  effort. 

The  seasons  come  and  go,  and  after  every  departure  there  is  a 
return  in  the  circle  run?  for  nature  has  fixed  laws  which  survive  vicis 
situdes  in  the  weather ;  the  day  runs  its  rounds  to  true  time,  and  only 
the  air  is  fickle  in  its  temperature. 

Human  government  is  comparative,  and  at  best  imperfect,  because 
ambitious  man  is  prone  to  discontent,  and  from  a  step  mounted  strives 
to  climb  a  step  higher  and  is  overturned ;  for  a  ladder  must  have  two 
rests,  one  on  the  ground,  the  other  against  an  object  to  prop  its 
elevated  end ;  and  if  a  pit  under  it  be  opened  or  its  support  be  re 
moved,  its  own  gravity  will  cause  it  to  fall ;  so  government  must  be 


26 

founded  in  impartial  justice,  and  be  supported  by  public  opinion,  else 
it  will  incline  from  the  upright,  and  in  its  tumble  down  take  with  it 
to  the  ground  those  who  made  of  it  a  ladder  for  selfish  exaltation,  in 
forgetfulness  of  the  special  providence  that  its  top  round  was  below 
the  lookout  summit  where  public  opinion,  in  a  republic,  is  a  law  of 
gravitation  to  bad  men  who  aspire  to  leadership  among  the  people. 
In  a  dynasty  there  is  a  standing  army  of  bayonets ;  in  a  republic  the 
adult  population  is  armed  with  the  ballot,  which  at  the  poll  is  the 
equivalent  of  a  ball  in  battle. 

Louisiana  is  a  conspicuous  State  in  the  Union  by  reason  of  its 
sugar  and  cotton  plantations,  and  because  it  abuts  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  contains  the  focus  of  Mississippi  River  and  seaboard  and 
trans-Atlantic  trade  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  which  occupies  one 
of  the  most  commanding  sites  on  the  world's  waters,  for  domestic 
and  foreign  trade,  having  thousands  of  miles  of  steamboat  naviga 
tion  on  the  fresh-water  rivers  in  its  rear,  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
miles  of  steamship  navigation  in  the  ocean  currents  on  its  front  and 
flanks. 

As  a  State  in  the  Union,  Manitoba  would  attract  observation  and 
acquire  distinction,  because  it  abuts  on  Hudson  Bay  or  Middle  Sea, 
which  is  a  summer-door  to  the  ocean  from  Minnesota  and  the  West, 
but  which,  notwithstanding  British  professions  of  free  trade  when  an 
Englishman  opens  his  mouth  in  Washington,  is  shut  and  barred  to 
force  trade  down  the  St.  Lawrence.  Consider  the  geographical  situa 
tion  of  Hudson  Bay,  which  continues  the  sea  into  the  West  more  than 
half  way  across  the  Canada  main,  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
Oceans.  With  Hudson  Bay  declared  a  free  and  open  sea,  Manitoba 
as  a  maritime  State  would  profit  from  a  back-door  on  the  north  open 
to  Europe,  as  Louisiana  profits  from  a  front-door  on  the  south  open 
to  the  West  Indies  and  all  the  Atlantic  coasts. 

Manitoba,  as  one  of  six  States  across  the  Union,  where  its  axle 
would  then  turn  on  six  wheels,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa, 
Minnesota,  and  Manitoba,  between  two  seas,  one  called  a  bay,  the 
other  a  gulf,  would  have  communication  in  all  directions  between  the 
haunts  of  Newfoundland  whales  and  Aleutian  seals,  tropical  alligators 
and  polar  bears. 

True,  Nelson  River  has  rapids  and  falls,  and  so  has  the  St.  Law 
rence  and  other  lake  and  river  routes,  rapids  and  falls ;  but  these 
natural  obstructions  to  navigation  have  been  overcome  by  the  judicious 
expenditure  of  money  in  works  engineered  with  skill ;  and  thus 
through  ways  of  art,  works  of  nature  are  utilized.  And  compared 
with  what  has  been  expended,  and  wisely  expended,  on  artificial  aids 
to  navigation  between  Lake  Superior  and  tidewater  in  the  St.  Law- 


27 

rence,  the  sum  needed  would  be  small,  to  provide  artificial  aids  to 
navigation  from  Lake  Winnipeg  to  Hudson  Bay. 

It  is  but  a  short  distance  from  Lake  Winnipeg  to  Hudson  Bay, 
from  Lake  Superior  to  James  Bay.  And  if  the  Canada  Pacific  Rail 
way  be  located  on  the  north  side  of  Lake  Nipigon,  a  short  branch 
road  would  suffice  to  reach  a  harbor  on  James  Bay. 

Apart  from  British  considerations,  which  in  the  Dominion  run 
counter  to  the  logic  of  American  events,  it  is  its  commercial  merit  as 
a  portage  railway  between  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  and  Hudson  Bay, 
through  British  Columbia  and  Manitoba,  that  gives  the  Canada  Pacific 
Railway  much  of  the  interest  it  awakens.  And  as  it  is  certain  that 
Montreal  will  advocate  branches  from  the  Canada  Pacific  main  line  to 
ports  on  near-by  tidewaters,  Montreal  cannot  demur  if  Manitoba  insist 
on  a  branch  road  to  a  terminus  on  the  James  Bay  arm-of  the  ocean, 
so  very  much  nearer  than  tidewater  in  the  St.  Lawrence. 

The  railway  from  Fort  Garry  to  a  junction  with  a  Minnesota  road 
from  St.  Paul  to  St.  Vincent,  opposite  Pembina,  will,  at  the  boundary 
line,  put  Manitoba  in  railway  communication  with  Minnesota,  Winni 
peg  with  St.  Paul,  and  the  railway  network  of  the  Mississippi  States — 
a  consideration  which  a  Manitoban  will  not  overlook,  but  which  he 
will  be  careful  to  weigh  and  turn  to  account. 

A  link  of  road  from  the  junction  of  the  Northern  Pacific  with  the 
Duluth  and  St.  Paul  line  at  Thomson,  to  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway 
on  high  ground  west  of  Fort  William,  where  it  deflects  northward 
and  possibly  will  pass  around  Lake  Nipigon,  would  make  a  seaport  on 
James  Bay,  to  be  called  Middlesea,  the  northern  terminus  of  the 
Mississippi  railway  system,  which  now  has  its  northernmost  station  at 
Duluth,  Lake  Superior,  a  fresh-water  reservoir,  not  a  part  of  the 
salt-water  sea  like  James  Bay. 

Undoubtedly  Middlesea  will  be  &  grain  port^-a  sort  of  Odessa — 
measured  by  its  bushels,  on  James  Bay,  whence  Hudson  Strait  opens 
away  to  Europe,  on  the  old  track  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's 
ships,  where  the  season  of  navigation  has  not  been  shortened. 

The  incorporation  of  British  Columbia  and  Manitoba  with  Ontario, 
Quebec,  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Prince  Edward's  Island, 
was  a  political  misalliance  that  will  make  incompatibility  manifest  in 
domestic  discord ;  for  whilst  Manitoba  will  have  warm  fellowship  with 
Minnesota,  it  will  have  only  cold  acquaintance  with  lower  Ontario  and 
Quebec;  and  whilst  British  Columbia  will  cultivate  intimate  relations 
with  the  Pacific  States,  and  especially  with  the  city  of  San  Francisco, 
the  Atlantic  provinces  of  the  Dominion  will  remain  strangers  to  it, 
for  Halifax  is  farther  from  it  than  is  New  York  city.  And  the 
Canada  Pacific  Railway,  failing  to  cause  an  exodus  into  the  wilderness 


28 


of  rigors,  but  serving  as  well  to  carry  dissatisfied  emigrants  thence  as 
deceived  immigrants  thither,  will  disappoint  the  sanguine  tempera 
ments  of  London,  where 

"Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view," 
And  gilds  the  iceberg  with  the  guinea's  hue. 

Between  Lake  Superior  and  James  Bay  a  temporary  boundary, 
beyond  which  the  Dominion  may  not  go,  is  indicated  in  probabilities 
which  are  as  blossoms  of  future  fruits,  depending  for  maturity  on 
season,  circumstance  and  time. 

A  subject  is  not  a  citizen ;  a  subject  is  required  to  be  allegiant  to 
a  dynasty  to  which  are  mortgaged  the  natural  rights  of  his  posterity, 
from  generation  to  generation ;  a  citizen,  on  the  contrary,  is  loyal  to 
his  government,  of  which  he  is  a  vital  part,  and  which  he  operates 
through  proxies  appointed  by  the  ballot  that  thinks  and  counts,  and 
therein  differs  from  the  bayonet,  which  is  only  a  tool ;  and  as  the 
judicious  citizen  is  careful  of  his  own  body,  to  preserve  his  health  and 
prolong  his  life,  so  is  he  also  watchful  of  the  republic,  especially  when 
danger  lowers  and  a  crisis  impends,  ready  and  anxious  with  the  remedy 
which  the  ballot  contains,  to  cure  abuses  that  degrade  localities  and 
deteriorate  the  civil  service. 

Since  the  first  pair  were  cast  out  of  Eden,  and  Adam  was  told  "  to 
till  the  ground  from  whence  he  was  taken,"  there  has  been  no  paradise 
on  the  earth.  But  a  republic  approximates  paradise,  compared  with 
other  governments,  as  Christian  piety  approximates  perfection,  com 
pared  with  Turkish  brutality  and  Mahometan  absolutism. 

Personal  government  is  despotism,  illustrated  in  the  First  and  the 
Third — the  big  and  the  little  Napoleon — who  both  waged  war  for 
aggression,  and  both  caused  the  temporary  prostration  of  France  at 
enormous  cost  in  treasure  and  life.  And  for  what  ?  Vainglory! 

And  so-called  responsible  government,  where  there  is  a  crown  or 
life  tenure,  with  a  right  of  succession,  and  an  aristocracy  with  personal 
prerogatives  and  class  privileges,  is  a  "  counterfeit  presentment"  of 
constitutional  power,  because  it  represents  only  a  portion  of  the  people 
ruled,  and  where  all  are  not  represented  the  rights-  of  the  unrepre 
sented  are  usurped. 

In  Europe,  France  and  Switzerland  excepted,  the  masses,  deprived 
of  the  exercise  of  rights  essential  to  free  and  equal  government,  are 
graduated  in  the  scale  of  life  farther  below  their  oppressors,  who  rule 
over  them,  than  they  are  marked  above  the  flocks  and  herds,  not 
withstanding  that,  in  the  order  of  nature,  the  prince  and  the  peasant 
die  by  the  same  process — dissolve  into  common  dust — and  go  to  judg 
ment  together  on  their  merits. 


29 

The  American  citizen,  from  the  political  level  on  which  the  people 
stand,  may  mount  the  winding  stair  of  promotion  to  its  topmost  step, 
and  there  elevated  wield  the  presidency  of  the  United  States ;  but  at 
the  end  of  his  term  he  descends  from  his  high  office  of  human  great 
ness,  and,  having  witnessed  the  inauguration  of  his  legal  successor, 
quietly  resumes  his  citizenship,  without  a  pension  or  other  reward 
than  the  affections  of  a  constituency  faithfully  served,  and  which  he 
reciprocates  and  is  grateful  for. 

In  a  province  where  the  subject  owes  allegiance  to  a  foreign  power, 
there  is  a  condition  of  dependence  not  congenial  to  manhood  aspira 
tions  for  distinction  and  progress.  And  it  is  called  "recruiting  the 
aristocracy  from  the  ranks,"  when  a  commoner,  no  matter  for  what 
reason,  is  given  a  title  to  distinguish  him  from  his  fellows.  But  pre- 
fixion  and  suffixion  are  dropped  from  the  immortal  names  best  known 
throughout  the  world,  as,  for  instance,  "  George  Washington,"  who  was 
commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  during  the  revolution,  and  the  first 
President  of  the  United  States.  The  world  identifies  indelible  names 
with  indelible  deeds,  and  does  not  cite  titles  when  it  quotes  heroes  and 
benefactors.  Why,  then,  are  titles  made  inheritances  in  kingdoms  ? 
Because  they  represent  civil  prerogatives  and  social  distinctions,  re 
served  from  the  people  despoiled  of  their  rights  !  The  unrest  of  the 
people  makes  the  dynasties  of  the  Old  World  shake  like  a  cradle  on 
rockers.  And  for  a  cause  of  the  prevailing  unrest  look  at  the  inequali 
ties  in  the  condition  of  the  masses,  oppressed  with  national  debts, 
standing  armies,  heavy  taxes  and  poor,  pay  for  hard  work.  Intellec 
tual  superiority,  where  not  bound  or  bottled,  will  assert  itself,  compel 
recognition,  and  command  acceptation  and  admiration,  too,  if  its  ten 
dencies  be  sympathetic  and  patriotic.  Cavour,  Thiers  and  Bismarck 
are  three  illustrious  examples  of  individual  influence  in  national  coun 
cils  in  recent  times. 

Reigning  houses  in  Europe  do  not  abound  in  ideas,  and  their  cost 
as  establishments  is  not  alone  in  disproportion  to  their  availability  to 
the  state,  but  is  equally  in  disproportion  to  the  capacity  of  the  people 
to  pay.  Retrenchment  which  begins  by  reducing  the  compensation 
of  the  lowliest,  whose  per  diem  is  least,  is  false  economy  ;  for  as  prices 
go  down,  the  purchasing  power  of  the  dollar  goes  up.  Hence,  those 
who  escape  reduction  of  salary  by  the  year  are  benefited  by  the  mis 
fortunes  of  those  who  suffer  reduction  of  compensation  per  day  and 
hour. 

Contrast  the  revenues  of  the  royal  family  of  Great  Britain  from  the 
national  treasury  and  other  sources,  with  the  pay-roll  of  all  the  opera 
tives  in  the  "  black  country"  of  Lancashire,  and  the  cost  of  royalty, 
with  its  immunities  and  impunities,  would  be  apparent. 


80 

In  the  United  States  abuses  crop  out  in  the  newspapers,  and  the 
delinquent  is  discussed  and  retired  on  the  black  list. 

In  Great  Britain  the  consequences  of  abuses  are  visited  on  the 
struggling  workingman,  who  is  the  bottom  rock  in  a  social  system 
which  has  more  degrees  and  gradations  than  there  are  formations  in 
the  stratification  exposed  in  a  shaft,  from  the  surface  of  the  ground  to 
the  bottom  of  a  deep  mine. 

In  the  United  States  the  avenues  of  preferment  are  as  numerous 
and  as  open  as  the  public  roads,  to  the  honors  of  station  and  the  prizes 
of  fortune.  And  herein  America  is  utterly  unlike  Great  Britain, 
where  there  are  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entail,  and  a  nobility  titled 
by  patent  right,  like  devices  in  the  mechanic  arts.  Hence,  subjects  in 
the  over-peopled  countries  of  Europe  (particularly  parents  of  chil 
dren),  who  look  abroad  over  the  earth  in  search  of  fields  wherein 
opportunities  invite  enterprise  and  industry,  are  fortunate  if  they 
elect  to  train  for  citizenship  of  the  United  States,  where  the  Celtic 
and  Teutonic  branches  of  the  Caucasian  race  are  conglomerated  in  a 
new  type  of  advanced  humanity,  builders  of  States  in  a  cemented  Union 
which  has  a  base  broad  as  the  continent  and  a  ( roof  higher  than  the 
clouds. 

Into  this  Union,  Alaska  arid  the  Aleutian  Islands,  acquired  from 
Russia  in  1867 — an  acquisition  geographically  strategic  and  politically 
significant — was  the  admission  of  latest  date. 

The  admission  of  Manitoba  and  British  Columbia  will  follow,  be 
cause  in  the  Dominion  they  insulate  Alaska  from  its  sisters,  and  are 
in  political  association — not  with  neighbors  next  door,  with  whom 
alliance  would  .be  the  result  of  natural  laws — but  with  distant  rela 
tions,  through  unhappy  contract  into  which  they  were  inveigled  when 
too  weak  to  resist  persuasion. 

The  retrocession  of  the  territory  ceded  to  Great  Britain  by  the 
treaty  of  June  15,  1846,  prior  to  which  it  had  been  avowed  by  the 
Polk  administration  that  the  title  of  the  United  States  to  the  Russian 
line  at  54°  40'  was  "clear  and  unquestionable,"  will  quicken  a  Pacific 
coast  province  into  a  Pacific  coast  State,  and  give  the  Strait  of  Juan 
de  Fuca  rank  and  consequence  with  the  Golden  Gate  of  San  Fran 
cisco. 

Arid  Manitoba,  separated  from  the  province  of  Ontario  by  a  tem 
porary  boundary  line  from  the  north  side  of  Minnesota  to  the  south 
end  of  James  Bay,  will  no  longer  be  in  solitude,  cold  as  its  ice  and 
cheerless  as  its  north  wind,  for  annexation  will  do  for  Manitoba  what 
annexation  did  for  Texas,  as  witness : 


31 

Population  of  Texas,  census  of  1870,      .         .         818,579 

States  of  Mexico  on  the  Rio  Grande  river : 
Population  of  Tamaulipas,      .         .         .     108,514 
Population  of  Coahuila,          .         .         .       67,691 
Population  of  Chihuahua,    •  .q*      .         .     179,971 
Total  as  per  report  of  commission  from 
Mexico   to  Philadelphia  Centennial 
Exhibition,       ,-• ,         .  A     .         .      356,17^ 


Texas  in  excess  of  three  Mexican  border  states,       462,403 

As  a  state  of  Mexico,  Texas  would  have  remained  undeveloped, 
exactly  as  Manitoba  has  remained  undeveloped  under  British  juris 
diction,  notwithstanding  the  attempts  made  to  colonize  it ;  for  Texas 
was  discovered  by  La  Salle  in  1580,  and  Manitoba,  too,  is  venerable, 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  charter  bearing  date  1670 — eleven  years 
before  Penn  founded  Pennsylvania — and  the  Serlick  settlement  on 
the  Red  River  of  the  North  was  visited  by  Lord  Serlick  with  a  mil 
itary  escort  in  1816,  at  which  time  Indiana  was  a  border  State  and 
Illinois  a  Territory. 

Mineral  discovery,  agricultural  development,  material  progress, 
and  widespread  prosperity,  have  added  State  after  State  to  the  Amer 
ican  Union  in  rapid  succession,  meanwhile  that  British  territory  north 
of  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  and  Mexican  territory  south  of  the  Rio 
Grande  river,  is  still  most  of  it  wilderness,  though  explored  before 
the  thirteen  British  colonies  became  the  thirteen  original  American 
States  of  the  Union  since  made  continental,  and  which  now  contains 
thirty-eight  States  and  eleven  Territories. 

Truly  this  grand  result  is  a  glowing  credit  to  free  institutions, 
which  tolerate  no  patent  political  classes,  but  treat  all  citizens  polit 
ically  alike ;  nowhere  else  are  opportunities  so  abundant,  nor  is  suc 
cess  so  frequently  attained  by  individuals  endowed  with  mental  gifts 
and  moral  worth,  and  who  study  for  success  with  honest  zeal  and 
manly  purpose,  never  wavering  in  fidelity  to  the  Testament,  the  Con 
stitution,  or  the  common  weal.  The  political  creed  of  the  American 
citizen  is :  Allegiance  to  God,  the  sole  sovereign  in  nature,  and  of 
whom  an  earthly  sovereign  is  a  poor  counterfeit,  a  mite  in  matter ; 
faith  in  Christ,  but  not  in  crowns ;  duty  to  self  with  minimum  selfish 
ness  ;  fidelity  to  the  Republic,  which  is  a  panoply  over  North  Amer 
ica  studded  with  States  that  glow  in  the  political  firmament  like  stars 
in  the  azure  arch  beneath  the  spirit  world  of  heaven  overhead. 


32 


CHAPTER     IV. 

THE  basin  of  Lake  Winnipeg  is  drained  by  rivers  which  flow  down 
from  the  west,  south  and  east,  including  the  Red  River  of  the  North, 
that  spreads  its  sources  and  affluents  over  large  portions  of  Minnesota 
and  Dakota,  there  interlocking  on  low  water-sheds  with  tributaries  of 
the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi ;  and  also  including  the  Saskatche 
wan,  whose  headwaters  are  among  the  fountains  of  the  Columbia  River 
in  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

The  area  of  Lake  Winnipeg  basin  is  360,000  square  miles,  eight 
times  the  size  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  seventy  per  cent,  larger 
than  the  basin  of  the  Ohio  River  from  its  source  in  Pennsylvania  to 
where  it  disembogues  in  the  Mississippi  River  at  Cairo  in  Illinois,  a 
distance  of  1265  miles. 

Lake  Winnipeg  basin,  moreover,  contains  the  cultivable  British 
territory,  available  for  agriculture,  between  the  watershed  near  Lake 
Superior  and  the  Rocky  Mountains.  To  be  sure,  the  fur-trader  may 
penetrate  farther  north  into  the  walrus  region — which  ought  to  be 
called  the  province  of  Walrusia,  or  reindeer  reservation — but  the 
farmer  will  not  accompany  him  with  his  plough,  for  frozen  ground  is 
not  arable  where  the  sun  in  summer  only  thaws  the  surface  of  the 
earth  and  Flora  pays  short  visits  to  her  wild  flowers. 

In  the  early  days  of  American  discovery,  France  colonized  a  strip 
of  territory  from  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  via  the  lakes  arid 
the  Ohio  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  And  France  first  estab 
lished  forts  on  the  inland  sea  afterwards  called  Hudson  Bay ;  but  the 
fortune  of  war  deprived  France  of  Canada,  and  subsequently  France 
sold  Louisiana  to  the  United  States,  thereby  preventing  its  possible 
conquest  and  occupation  by  a  rival  European  power,  and  assuring  to 
its  inhabitants  a  destiny  identical  with  the  Mississippi  valley  States. 
In  this  transaction,  which  occurred  in  1803,  Napoleon,  then  Consul 
for  life,  exhibited  both  foresight  and  wisdom ;  for,  had  France  been 
dispossessed  of  Louisiana  by  the  conqueror  of  Canada,  the  trespass 
would  have  irritated  the  American  people  and  provoked  a  war,  because 
self-preservation,  to  say  nothing  of  "manifest  destiny,"  made  it  clear 
that  the  whole  of  the  Mississippi  basin  should  be  in  and  of  the  Union. 
The  battle  of  New  Orleans,  fought  by  General  Andrew  Jackson,  Jan 
uary  8,  1815,  is  a  record  of  what  the  West  will  do  to  keep  the  Missis 
sippi  basin  intact  and  tight,  to  hold  together  the  States  within  it  for 
mutual  protection  and  a  common  aim,  these  love-bound  States  mean 
time  serving  as  political  models  for  imitation  by  colonies  subjected  to 
foreign  jurisdiction  and  slower  growth. 


33 

The  American  citizen  is  a  new  graft  on  the  Caucasian  tree ;  the 
British  subject  is  a  transplant  that  will  not  bear  British  fruit  in 
American  soil,  for  nativity  in  the  Republic  is  nationality,  whereas 
the  colonial  condition  is  political  bondage ;  nor  can  an  intelligent, 
free-will  native  of  France,  Ireland,  Germany,  Holland,  Italy,  Bel 
gium,  Russia,  Austria,  Sweden,  Denmark  or  Spain  stay  in  a  Cana 
dian  province  and  owe  allegiance  to  England  afar  off,  when  he  can 
move  into  a  near-by  State  and  become  a  citizen  of  the  American 
Republic,  where  political  equality  dwells,  and  immigrants  can  thrive 
and  be  happy  in  their  own  homesteads. 

In  Manitoba  no  man  can  shut  his  optic  nor  his  mental  eye  to  the 
fact  that  the  outlook  south  down  the  Mississippi  is  brighter  and 
warmer  and  more  genial  than  east  down  the  St.  Lawrence,  to  where 
icebergs  float  in  fleets,  fog-banks  envelop  the  coasts,  and  the  inhabit 
ants,  in  compliment  to  the  climate,  are  called  "  blue-noses." 

Manitoba,  therefore,  will  evolve  out  of  a  province  into  a  State,  as 
Texas  did,  and  so  illustrate  the  doctrine  of  evolution  applied  to  politi 
cal  institutions,  and  as  demonstrated  in  Louisiana  in  1803,  Florida 
in  1819,  Texas  in  1846,  California  in  1848,  and  Alaska  in  1867,  all 
acquisitions  surpassing  assessment  or  valuation,  all  evolutions  since 
the  revolution  of  the  thirteen  colonies  into  thirteen  States,  the  father 
land  of  the  twenty-five  additional  States  admitted  into  the  Union, 
east  of  the  Hudson  River  and  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountain. 

As  a  maritime  State  on  the  Hudson  Bay  (Middle  Sea),  Manitoba 
will  not  be  unlike  the  maritime  State  of  Louisiana  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico ;  for  as  New  Orleans  has  communication  with  Europe  via 
Florida  Strait,  so  will  the  principal  city  of  Manitoba,  through  a  sea 
port  in  Manitoba  on  Hudson  Bay,  or  in  Ontario  on  James  Bay.  have 
communication  with  Europe  via  Hudson  Strait,  when  open  to  naviga 
tion  the  same  as  the  St.  Lawrence,  after  the  annual  thaw  which  ends 
the  embargo  of  inevitable  ice. 

In  the  organization  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  the  province  of 
Ontario  in  186T  had  assigned  to  it  that  portion  of  Canada  included 
prior  thereto  in  the  province  of  Upper  Canada.  And  Upper  Canada 
ended  on  the  west  where  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  territory  com 
menced  on  the  east,  to  wit,  at  the  Kaministiqua  River,  at  the  mouth 
of  which  is  Fort  William,  Thunder  Bay,  Lake  Superior.  The  Hud 
son  Bay  Company,  whose  charter,  granted  in  1670,  expired  in  1859, 
was  bought  out  and  succeeded  by  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  But 
Ontario  claimed  that  its  territory  extended  to  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
if  not  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  a  boundary  commission  was  appointed 
to  arbitrate  between  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  the  Province  of 
Ontario.  The  award  of  the  arbitrators  is  dated  August  3,  1878. 
3 


34 

The  new  boundary  established  by  the  commission  leaves  James  Bay 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Albany  River,  thence  up  the  said  river  and  via 
Lake  St.  Joseph,  thence  to  the  headwaters  of  the  English  River,  and 
thence  westerly  to  a  meridional  line  drawn  from  the  most  northwesterly 
angle  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  and  thence  south  to  the  national 
boundary.  This  decision  cuts  into  Manitoba  and  extends  Ontario 
about  two  hundred  miles  west  of  its  original  limitation.  What  use 
Ontario  will  make  of  its  acquisition  time  will  unfold.  Manitoba, 
however,  will  very  soon  enjoy  unbroken  rail  communication  between 
Winnipeg  and  St.  Paul  via  St.  Vincent,  opposite  Pembina.  And  the 
exclusion  of  Manitoba  from  its  frontage  on  Lake  Superior  at  Thunder 
Bay,  and  thence  to  Pigeon  lliver  at  the  Minnesota  line,  will  tend  to 
identify  Manitoba  more  and  more  with  Minnesota  and  the  Mississippi 
valley.  Not  an  inch  of  Manitoba  territory  is  left  in  the  basin  of 
Lake  Superior ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  Ontario's  new  boundary  line 
runs  along  the  west  side  of  the  watershed  between  Lake  Superior  and 
Winnipeg,  completely  insulating  Manitoba  from  Lake  Superior. 

The  State  of  Pennsylvania  was  not  content  to  continue  insulated 
from  Lake  Erie,  and  purchased  territory  on  Lake  Erie  whereby  it 
acquired  a  lake  harbor  at  Erie  City.  Manitoba  had  territory  and 
harbors  on  Lake  Superior,  but  Manitoba  has  been  this  present  year 
deprived  of  its  Lake  Superior  frontier,  to  aggrandize  Ontario  !  True, 
Manitoba  still  has  Duluth  in  Minnesota  for  an  objective  point  on  Lake 
Superior,  instead  of  a  landing  place  on  Thunder  Bay  in  Ontario. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  unkind  to  drive  Manitoba  out  of  the  St.  Law 
rence  basin,  which  includes  Lake  Superior  and  its  affluents,  to  extend 
Ontario  into  the  Winnipeg  basin,  even  to  the  "  most  northwesterly 
angle  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,"  covering  a  large  area  of  land,  and 
lakes,  and  rivers,  which  constitute  portions  of  the  Winnipeg  system  of 
water  navigation.  In  this  diplomatic  adjustment  of  boundary  line 
Manitoba  is  the  sufferer ;  and  if  Manitoba  was  previously  distrusted 
at  Ottawa,  and  therefore  in  precaution  against  possible  future  move 
ments  in  the  West,  which  returns  its  rainfall  to  the  sea  through  the 
Mississippi  and  Nelson  Rivers,  the  Province  of  Ontario  was  extended 
over  portages,  rivers  and  lakes  to  the  Winnipeg  River,  the  loyalty  of 
Manitoba  to  Ottawa  and  royalty  will  hardly  be  increased  by  its  sever 
ance  and  expulsion  from  the  St.  Lawrence  basin,  between  Pigeon 
River  and  Thunder  Bay ;  for  now  Manitoba,  cut  off  from  Lake 
Superior  by  the  new  frontier  of  Ontario,  is  in  complete  identification 
with  Minnesota,  which  has  a  Mississippi  River  harbor  at  St.  Paul, 
a  Lake  Superior  harbor  at  Duluth,  and  railways  in  all  directions. 

Michigan  and  Wisconsin  as  well  as  Minnesota  may  look  to  James 
Bay  for  an  additional  outlet  to  the  ocean ;  and  if  Ontario  demur  to 


right  of  way  from  the  north  shore  of  Lake  Superior  to  James  Bay, 
Ontario  cannot  expect  to  enjoy  unlimited  facilities  in  Michigan,  to 
reach  Chicago.  Are  not  Dominion  interests  promoted  by  the  ferry 
across  Lake  Michigan,  between  Milwaukee  and  Grand  Haven,  by  the 
ferry  across  Detroit  River,  between  Detroit  and  Windsor,  and  by  the 
ferry  across  the  Strait  of  St.  Glair,  between  Port  Huron  and  Sarnia  ? 
And  when  necessity  or  convenience  shall  require  ferry  accommoda 
tions  between  the  south  shore  of  Lake  Superior,  occupied  jointly  by 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin,  and  the  north  shore,  all  in  Ontario,  to 
facilitate  communication  with  James  Bay,  and  with  Europe  via 
Hudson  Strait,  will  Ontario  or  the  Dominion  grant  the  necessary 
legislation  for  a  lake  ferry  and  a  portage  railway,  or  venture  to  with 
hold  it  ? 

Great  Britain  is  not  satisfied  with  the  open  sea  route  to  India  via 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  but  fusses  and  blusters  about  the  Suez 
Canal,  as  if  anybody  intended  to  shut  it ;  and  about  the  Euphrates 
valley,  as  if  anybody  not  British  intended  to  build  a  railroad  in  it, 
when  there  is  better  ground  for  a  shorter  route  to  India,  from  Paris, 
Berlin,  and  St.  Petersburg,  north  of  the  Black  Sea ! 

The  West,  which  comprises  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi  River  and 
the  basins  of  the  lakes  west  of  Niagara  Falls,  will  also  comprise  the 
basin  of  Nelson  River ;  and  then  the  West  will  cover  and  include  all 
the  territory  between  the  salt  waters  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Hud 
son  Bay,  and  from  the  Allegheny  Mountain,  where  the  Atlantic 
slope  ends,  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  the  Pacific  slope  begins. 
There  is  only  one  West  in  North  America,  and  that  has  mountain 
watersheds  on  the  east  and  west  parallel  with  the  two  oceans,  and 
reservoirs  of  seawater  on  the  north  and  south. 

Hudson  Bay  will  be  made  available  for  a  distributing  basin  in 
summer  time.  Compared  with  Hudson  Strait  the  St.  Lawrence  route 
through  Quebec  -and  Ontario  is  a  sinuous  way  to  the  sea,  from  the 
wheat  belt  in  the  West,  to  which  England  is  indebted  for  much  of  its 
bread,  as  it  is  likewise  indebted  to  the  Union  for  meat  to  eat  and 
cotton  to  wear.  Great  Britain,  with  its  entailed  estates  and  areas  of 
cultivable  land  reserved  from  cultivation,  and  its  titled  aristocracy  to 
support  in  luxury,  is  a  heavy  buyer  of  breadstuifs. 

Among  the  nations  where  government  is  wise  and  domestic  policy 
is  far-sighted,  it  is  the  aim  of  each  to  manipulate  its  own  ores  and 
fibrous  productions  into  manufactures,  for  consumption  and  exporta 
tion,  a  discriminating  practice  which  will  tend  to  modify  foreign  com 
merce  into  intertrade  in  surplus  commodities ;  for  a  nation  will  not 
continue  to  pay  out  for  labor,  in  another  land,  money  which  may  be 
distributed  for  labor  at  home.  The  machine-man  is  on  his  travels, 


36 

busy  at  every  World's  Fair,  and  the  distribution  of  labor  on  a  new 
basis,  not  British,  is  his  grand  mission. 

The  original  thirteen  States  which  cut  the  colonial  knot  to  terminate 
allegiance  to  Great  Britain,  and  which,  after  winning  with  the  sword 
the  title  of  "  free  and  independent  States,"  established  the  Union 
under  a  Constitution  framed  with  rare  wisdom  and  prophetic  adapta 
tion  to  human  wants,  were  all  in  a  row  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  east 
of  Florida,  afterwards  acquired  from  Spain.  Now,  the  Union  has  an 
ocean  boundary  west  as  well  as  east,  and  a  gulf  border  on  its  south 
side;  but  the  Union  also  needs  Hudson  Bay,  i.  e.,  Middle  Sea,  for  an 
Atlantic  dock,  to  facilitate  and  cheapen  intercourse  and  intertrade 
between  Europe  and  the  Mississippi,  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
Pacific  States,  Manitoba  and  British  Columbia,  as  States  of  the  Union, 
likewise  inclusive.  Then,  the  Union  will  have  two  seas  for  boundary 
docks,  and  axis  ends  midway  between  its  two  ocean  shores ;  and  from 
its  two  principal  inland  cities,  Chicago  and  St.  Louis,  marts  of  rapid 
and  vigorous  growth,  straight  lines  drawn  to  the  four  cardinal  points 
will  all  intersect  tidewaters,  open  to  free  navigation  around  the  world. 

When  head  winds  delayed  the  mariner,  and  blew  his  ship  off  its 
course,  long  voyages,  as  living  persons  can  testify,  were  tedious  under 
takings  ;  but,  nowadays,  the  steamship  runs  to  schedule  time,  on  paths 
across  the  waters,  as  the  locomotive  engine  runs  to  schedule  on  rail 
ways  overland,  whereby  the  time-table  and  the  time-piece  regulate  the 
affairs  of  foreign  trade  conducted  under  treaties ;  and  so,  in  a  prac 
tical  dollar  sense,  apart  from  the  more  elevating  intellectualities  and 
sublimer  divinities  of  the  theme,  the  intertrade  movement  is  but  an 
international  show  held  in  a  single  spot,  as  in  Fairmount  Park,  Phila 
delphia,  in  1876,  magnified  and  expanded  to  the  true  areas  of  the 
nations  and  the  true  quantities  and  values  of  the  import  and  export 
trade  over  the  whole  earth. 

And  the  nations  that  were  separated  by  distances  in  miles,  beset 
with  difficulties  which  delayed  transportation  and  increased  its  cost, 
can,  in  these  times,  advanced  into  the  interior  of  civilization,  deliver 
the  commodities  of  intertrade  by  sure,  swift  and  cheap  conveyance, 
on  contracts  and  messages  passed  through  submarine  cables  and  over 
land  wires  that  "put  a  girdle  round  about  the  earth"  in  considerably 
less  than  Puck's  minimum  of  "forty  minutes." 

Although  the  fortune  of  war  deprived  Great  Britain  of  thirteen 
colonies,  which  became  thirteen  States,  containing  318,572  square 
miles  of  surface,  since  expanded  into  thirty-eight  States  and  eleven 
Territories,  Great  Britain  plans  and  builds  railways  to  keep  the  pro 
vinces  of  the  Dominion  together  with  iron  bands,  as  the  staves  of  a 
barrel  are  held  together  with  iron  hoops ;  and  to  make  a  spread  of 


37 

empire  on  paper,  Great  Britain  claims  jurisdiction  underneath  the 
Aurora  Borealis  even  to  the  North  Pole,  not  yet  visited. 

Well,  as  France  still  retains  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon  Islands,  near 
Newfoundland,  notwithstanding  that  Canada  was  confirmed  to  Great 
Britain  by  treaty,  signed  in  1763,  so  Great  Britain  might  retain  the 
Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  north  of  Vancouver 
Island,  after  the  temporary  boundary  fence  from  Lake  Superior  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  from  54°40'  to  Demarkation  Point  in  Beaufort 
Bay,  shall  have  been  modified  into  a  partition  with  communicating 
doors  between  compartments,  for  Alaska  the  Russian-born  Territory, 
and  its  neighbors  also  adopted  into  the  Union  family. 

As  Eastern  Texas  has  prospered  on  cotton,  so  may  Southern  Mani 
toba  prosper  on  wheat ;  but  the  development  of  Texas  succeeded  its 
admission  into  the  Union,  arid  Manitoba  must  ask  to  come  in,  and  get 
in  like  Texas  did,  before  it  can  attract  immigration  as  Minnesota  and 
Dakota  do,  alongside  Manitoba,  but  inside  the  Union. 

Serlick,  on  Red  River,  where  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway  crosses 
and  the  Pembina  branch  begins,  Moorhead,  on  Red  River,  where  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad  crosses,  Omaha,  on  the  Missouri  River, 
where  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  technically  ends,  and  Galveston,  the 
principal  seaport  of  Texas,  distinguished  for  its  export  of  cotton  bales, 
are  all  on  or  near  the  same  degree  of  longitude.  Omaha,  too,  is  mid 
way  between  the  mouth  of  Nelson  River,  in  Hudson  Bay,  and  the 
mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  And  the  distance 
from  Omaha  to  San  Francisco  is  shorter  than  the  distance  from 
Omaha  to  Halifax. 

From  Port  Moody,  the  terminus  of  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway,  on 
Burrard  Inlet,  mouth  of  Frazer  River,  to  Port  Nelson,  Hudson  Bay, 
the  distance  is  shorter  than  from  Port  Nelson  to  Halifax.  And  as  a 
harbor  can  be  provided  on  a  river  emptying  into  Hudson  Bay,  if  not 
on  the  Nelson,  certainly  on  the  Churchill  River,  then  the  trunk-line 
portage  railway  between  the  Pacific  waters  in  or  near  Frazer  River 
and  a  river  port  west  of  and  accessible  from  Hudson  Bay  will,  of 
course,  be  shortened  correspondingly. 

Consider  a  route  from  Europe  to  San  Francisco,  the  Pacific  States, 
and  Asia,  via  Hudson  Strait  and  Juan  de  Fuca  Strait,  with  a  portage 
railway  between  Frazer  River  and  Hudson  Bay,  versus  the  Canada 
Pacific  Railway  via  Ottawa  to  seawater  and  winter  ice  in  the  St. 
Lawrence. 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company  throughout  its  long  career  sent  its  ships 
into  Hudson  Bay,  and  established  numerous  forts  and  fur  factories  on 
its  shores.  As  to  falls  and  cataracts  in  Manitoba,  recall  the  condition 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  route  between  Port  Colbourne  and  Montreal  before 


38 

the  Welland  and  St.  Lawrence  Canals  provided  artificial  navigation 
from  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Ontario  to  tidewater  in  Canada. 

But  whatever  artificial  works  may  be  needed  ought  to  be  provided, 
to  improve  a  river  emptying  into  Hudson  Bay,  to  facilitate  the  tran 
shipment  of  commodities  to  and  from  Hudson  Bay,  which,  in  verity, 
is  a  sea,  and  the  Pacific  coast  and  intermediate  points ;  and  also  to 
improve  a  river  emptying  into  James  Bay,  or  a  harbor  on  James  Bay, 
to  facilitate  the  transhipment  of  commodities  carried  to  and  from  the 
sea  in  James  Bay  and  the  Mississippi  valley  States;  for  where  freight 
is  bulky  and  weighty  it  is  a  consideration  to  shorten  overland  distance 
to  tidewater  navigation,  because  once  on  tidewater  the  way  is  open  to 
destinations  along  the  coast  and  across  the  ocean,  by  the  cheapest 
known  m6de  of  transportation. 

Meditate  the  tonnage  between  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  other  lake 
ports  and  New  York  city,  via  the  Erie  Canal  and  the  Hudson  River 
tideway.  Then  count  the  meshes  and  the  miles  in  the  network  of  iron 
track  from  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  ports  from  Galveston  to  Portland, 
inland  and  over  the  interior  to  cities  on  the  lakes,  from  Oswego  to 
Duluth.  Lastly,  extend  this  connected  network,  most  of  it  of  the 
standard  4  feet  8J  inches  gauge,  northward  to  James  Bay  and  Hud 
son  Bay,  and  westward  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Assuredly  from  Mani 
toba  the  outlook  is  broader  and  brighter  southward  and  westward, 
than  eastward  via  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway,  considered  as  a  route 
to  Montreal  in  summer,  and  to  Halifax  in  winter,  not  to  be  inter 
sected  in  Manitoba  by  cross-cut  railway  portages  to  Hudson  Sea  and 
James  Bay ! 

The  Canada  Grand  Trunk  Railway,  a  rate-cutting  competitor  for 
Boston  and  Chicago  traffic,  in  1877  received  per  ton  per  mile,  for 
freight  carried,  the  average  of  only  eight  mills,  or  eight-tenths  of  one 
cent;  and  the  travel  over  the  Canada  Grand  Trunk,  in  1877,  averaged 
only  fifty-eight  passengers  per  train.  Why?  Because  its  revenue 
(profit  unconsidered)  would  be  still  less  than  it  is  if  its  operations  were 
restricted  to  the  Dominion  and  Maine,  and  it  had  no  ally  in  Vermont 
and  Massachusetts. 

And  so,  Manitoba,  to  prosper,  must  intertrade  south  as  well  as 
west;  for  with  the  eastern  provinces  of  the  Dominion  it  will  have 
less  intercourse  and  lighter  intertrade  than  with  the  Western  States 
of  the  Union,  when  its  near-by  bays,  on  which  it  abuts,  shall  have 
been  made  available  for  communication,  via  salt  water,  with  the  com 
mercial  world,  in  summer  time. 


39 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  signed  at  Washington  May  8,  1871, 
for  arbitration  of  the  Alabama  Claims,  Fishery  Question,  the  San 
Juan  boundary,  &c.,  a  treaty  in  the  negotiation  of  which  Hamilton 
Fish,  Secretary  of  State,  was  weighed,  measured,  and  outwitted  by 
his  diplomatic  adversary,  and  out  of  which  grave  mistake  of  President 
Grant's  administration  in  forfeiting  a  "golden  opportunity"  has 
grown  a  grievance  on  the  Fishery  Question  to  be  redressed  hereafter, 
provides  that : 

"  The  navigation  of  the  rivers  Yukon,  Porcupine,  and  Stikine, 
from,  to  and  into  the  sea,  shall  forever  remain  free  and  open  for  the 
purposes  of  commerce,  to  the  subjects  of  her  Britannic  Majesty  and 
to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States." 

The  Porcupine  River  is  a  branch  of  the  Yukon  River,  which 
empties  into  the  Behring  Sea  north  of  the  Aleutian  peninsula,-  and 
the  Stikine  River  empties  into  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  the  vicinity  of 
Sitka. 

When  Hamilton  Fish,  Secretary  of  State,  in  1871,  made  the  rivers 
of  Alaska  "  free  and  open"  to  British  subjects,  why  did  he  not  stipu 
late  that  Frazer  River  in  British  Columbia,  and  the  Red  River  of  the 
North,  and  Lake  Winnipeg  and  the  rivers  to  it  from  the  west,  and  the 
river  from  it  to  Hudson  Bay,  should -be  "free  and  open"  to  citizens 
of  the  United  States  ? 

The  omission  of  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  which  is  four  parts 
in  Minnesota  to  one  part  in  Manitoba,  is  extraordinary ;  and  to  sup 
pose  a  blunder  equivalent  to  it,  one  must  imagine  Austria,  which  pours 
its  waters  into  the  Danube,  far  above  its  mouths,  omitted  from  treaties 
regulating  its  navigation  to  the  Black  Sea ! 

Hudson  Bay  is  Middle  Sea,  and  Minnesota  and  Dakota  stand  to  it, 
via  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  which  empties  into  it  under  another 
name  that  does  not  change  its  nature  or  its  course,  as  Austria  and 
Servia  stand  to  the  Black  Sea  via  the  Danube,  which  has  different 
names  for  its  several  mouths. 

President  Grant's  administration  had  a  national  grievance  proved 
against  Great  Britain,  and  reparation  or  war  was  the  alternative ;  and 
yet  Secretary  Fish,  in  a  negotiation  to  prescribe  the  measure  and 
method  of  satisfaction — keep  this  in  mind — permitted  the  insidious 
and  ever-scheming  enemy  of  his  country  (that  aided  rebellion  in  under 
hand  ways  and  promoted  piracy  with  English-built  Alabamas,  till 
American  ships  were  almost  swept  from  the  seas  and  Great  Britain 
became  the  monopolist  of  the  ocean-carrying  trade)  to  arbitrate,  that 
is,  to  liquidate  an  injury  to  the  United  States  which  continues  to  inure 


40 

to  the  advantage  of  Great  Britain  through  its  ocean  ships,  with  a 
money  consideration  to  be  ascertained  by  a  throw  of  dice  or  shuffle  of 
cards — for  what  is  arbitration  but  a  game  of  chance,  especially  where 
a  majority  of  the  commissioners  owe  their  nomination  to  foreign 
powers  ? 

True,  the  San  Juan  Island  arbitration  resulted  in  favor  of  the 
United  States  by  the  decision  of  Frederick  William  I.,  Emperor  of 
Germany,  October  21,  1872.  But  the  British  claim  to  the  island  of 
San  Juan  under  a  forced  interpretation  of  the  treaty  of  June  15,  1846, 
was  an  act  of  British  finesse  and  attempted  bluff,  to  which  the  fitting 
answer  would  have  been  a  notice  that,  after  a  date  given,  joint  mili 
tary  occupation  should  cease,  and  that  thereafter  the  army  of  the 
United  States  would  occupy  San  Juan  Island. 

How  the  British  intrigued  at  Berlin  in  1872,  and  how  Emperor 
William  was  beset  to  decide  in  favor  of  Great  Britain,  is  matter  of 
history.  And  it  is  to  the  impartiality  of  Emperor  William  of  Ger 
many,  not  to  the  diplomacy  of  Hamilton  Fish,  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  indebted  for  the  possession  of  the  strategic  island 
of  San  Juan,  acquired  by  treaty  dated  June  15,  1846,  imperilled  by 
arbitration  authorized  by  treaty  dated  May  8,  1871. 

The  Halifax  Fishery  award,  however,  of  $5,500,000?  made  Novem 
ber  22,  1877,  by  Maurice  Delfosse,  Belgian  Minister  at  Washington, 
and  Alexander  T.  Gait,  appointee  of  her  Britannic  Majesty,  for  fish 
ing  privileges  only  worth  a  license  to  fish,  not  a  ransom  for  fish  caught 
in  the  saltwater  highway — as  brigands  ransom  tourists  captured  on 
the  stage-travelled  highways  in  Italy  and  Greece — will  doubtless  put  a 
quietus  on  the  international  arbitration  humbug,  as  between  America 
and  Europe.  Ensign  H.  Kellogg  was  Commissioner  for  the  United 
States,  outvoted  at  Halifax. 

The  Congress  of  Vienna,  1814-15,  distributed  European  territory 
and  population,  and  exercised  other  powers,  with  as  little  remorse  and 
not  more  penitence  than  a  banditti  distributes  its  spoils,  made  up  of 
the  proceeds  of  rapine  on  the  highway  and  hearthstone. 

France  was  prostrated  and  exhausted,  a  Bourbon  was  on  its  throne, 
and  Napoleon  had  met  his  fate  at  Waterloo ;  so  there  was  no  military 
Satan  abroad  to  make  Europe  afraid ;  but  that  very  fact,  for  which 
diplomacy  should  have  been  thankful,  made  dynastic  parties  greedy, 
covetous  and  cruel.  The  Vienna  Congress  served  the  devil  best,  and 
set  portions  of  Europe  back  (not  including  Austria  and  England)  a 
period  of  time  equivalent  to  two  generations  of  men.  And  diplomacy 
did  that  fell  work  when  war  was  at  an  end. 

Turn,  too,  to  the  1878  Congress  of  Berlin.  The  infidel  Turk  in 
vaded  Christian  Europe  and  captured  Adrianople  in  1361,  Constanti- 


41 

nople  in  1453.  Turkish  rule  in  Europe  has  been  an  outrage  on 
humanity,  christianized,  through  centuries  of  time  ;  at  irregular  inter 
vals  the  barbarities  inflicted  on  the  Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte 
have  made  their  fellow- Christians  shudder  in  all  lands.  And  what 
ever  was  done  to  make  Turkey  relax  her  grasp  on  the  Christian's 
rights  in  Europe,  is  mainly  due  to  Russia.  But  for  Russia  the  alter 
native  would  have  been  Islamism  or  massacre  long  ago. 

After  such  atrocities  as  had  never  been  surpassed  anywhere  (not 
even  by  the  British  in  India,  when,  on  the  suppression  of  the  mutiny 
of  1857,  human  bodies  were  discharged  from  the  cannon's  mouth), 
Russia,  the  chief  champion  of  the  Christian  populations  in  the  Pro 
vinces  of  Turkey,  declared  war  against  Turkey  on  the  24th  of  April, 
1877.  This  war  England  could  have  averted  by  cooperation  with  the 
other  signatory  powers  to  the  Paris  treaty  of  March  30,  1856,  but 
England,  "perfidious  Albion,"  refused.  The  treaty  of  San  Stefano, 
dated  February  19,  1878,  inside  of  ten  months  from  the  declaration 
of  war,  attests  the  triumph  of  the  Russian  arms,  for  the  Russian 
forces  fought  their  way  across  the  Balkans  through  the  rigors  of 
winter,  occupied  Adrianople,  and  at  San  Stefano  were  at  the  very 
gates  of  Constantinople. 

And  then  it  was,  after  the  Turk  has  been  whipped,  that  British 
bluster  broke  out ;  the  British  fleet  of  iron-clads,  in  violation  of  the 
treaty  of  Paris,  and  against  the  remonstrance  of  Turkey,  steamed  up 
the  Dardanelles  ;  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  voted  money,  osten 
sibly  for  military  and  naval  preparations,  with  a  percentage  for  sub 
sidy  understood  ;  for  official  servitors  of  impecunious  dynasties  include 
cheap  human  chattels,  and  as  a  little  fuel  will  raise  steam  to  blow  a 
whistle,  so  will  a  few  dollars  raise  wind  to  make  a  noise. 

A  scrap-book  made  up  of  official  British  correspondence  and  cut 
tings  from  the  London  newspapers,  beginning  with  the  Berlin  Mem 
orandum  dated  May,  1876,  which  Great  Britain  refused  to  sign,  and 
which  would  have  averted  the  war  so  disastrous  to  Turkey,  by  con 
straining  that  doomed  despotism  to  grant  the  concessions  asked  for 
by  the  continental  powers,  would  illustrate  how  the  British  lion  was 
made  rampant  with  imitation  anger,  till  it  swallowed  an  island  belong 
ing  to  its  ally,  and  so  with  Cyprus  appeased  its  hunger ;  for  when 
British  hunger  is  appeased,  British  pride  is  satisfied. 

On  the  13th  June,  1878,  a  Congress  of  seven  powers — Russia, 
Turkey,  Italy,  France,  Austria,  Germany  and  Great  Britain — met  at 
Berlin  to  discuss  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  and  preserve  the  peace 
with  diplomatic  chess ;  for  secret  societies  and  attempted  assassina 
tions  had  begotten  a  common  dread  that  a  general  war  might  develop 
a  new  danger  in  social  and  political  elements,  antagonistic  to  the 


42 

ruling  powers  represented  by  the  Berlin  plenipotentiaries,  and  which 
might  in  some  places  profit  by  war  to  promote  revolution ;  since, 
however  powerful  a  potentate  may  seem,  he  must  have  his  people  on 
his  side,  and  must  conform  to  public  opinion  in  his  action,  to  assure 
stability  and  justify  succession  in  his  line.  Moral  responsibility  is 
inherited  at  every  birth  and  pervades  every  life ;  and  possession  and 
power  are  identical  only  where  the  ruler  and  the  ruled  are  cordial  in 
cooperation.  Hence  ministers  are  slow  to  abet  war  where  the  people 
are  not  in  accord  with  the  aims  of  the  administration  in  office,  whether 
its  chief  wears  a  crown  or  holds  a  certificate  of  election;  unless, 
indeed,  where  a  man  commands  confidence  from  belief  in  his  patriot 
ism  and  greatness,  and  even  then  if  he  fall  short  he  will  fall  far,  for 
the  nation  is  paramount  and  the  individual  must  succumb. 

On  the  13th  July,  1878,  after  a  session  of  one  month,  the  Berlin 
Congress  signed  a  treaty  and  adjourned.  If  it  did  much,  it  left  more 
undone,  for  its  articles  are  only  temporary  trestles  where  arches  of 
enduring  masonry  are  necessary  in  a  permanent  way  over  a  crisis 
which  will  periodically  reappear,  till  the  Turk  return  to  Asia,  whence 
he  came  to  curse  Europe  with  his  false  religion  and  his  beastly  vices. 

In  the  Congress  of  Berlin  the  course  of  the  ambassador  of  France 
is  incomprehensible,  save  on  the  hypothesis  that,  because  France 
under  the  first  Napoleon  sought  to  embarrass  and  thwart  Alexander 
the  First,  till  Moscow  consumed  his  ambitious  hopes  of  colossal  empire 
in  its  ashes,  and  made  him  a  fugitive  from  Russia,  where  his  army 
left  its  bones  in  evidence  of  its  destruction,  therefore :  France,  wrong 
after  the  interview  of  25th  June,  1807,  on  the  raft  in  the  Niemen  at 
Tilsit  and  the  occult  treaty  of  Tilsit  of  8th  July,  1807,  wrong  in  the 
Crimean  war  of  1854-56,  which  was  conceived  and  waged  to  make 
Russia  a  Baltic  state  like  Sweden,  must,  to  be  true  to  its  Russo- 
phobic  wrong-doing,  commit  a  final  blunder  at  Berlin  in  1878 ;  where, 
after  having  voted  against  Russia  and  with  England,  it  was  made 
wise,  when  too  late,  with  the  information  that  meantime  Great  Britain 
was  pettifogging  and  shystering  for  the  Turk  at  Berlin,  to  play  its 
high  moral  part  in  the  European  drama,  it  had  negotiated  a  secret 
treaty  with  Turkey  for  its  own  aggrandizement  in  the  Mediterranean, 
geographically  in  Asia,  it  is  true,  but  politically  and  commercially, 
and  in  a  naval  and  military  sense,  in  Europe ;  in  a  place,  too,  where 
Cyprus  under  the  British  flag  is  a  defiance  to  France,  to  say  nothing 
of  Italy  and  Spain. 

In  its  foreign  diplomacy,  in  which  France  was  preeminent  before 
the  Buonapartes,  France,  since  its  seduction  by  Great  Britain,  has 
obviously  declined ;  and  among  Britons  and  pro-Britons  it  is  an  opin 
ion  expressed  with  satisfaction  that  France  has  culminated  in  Euro- 


43 

pean  politics,  which  is  understood  to  imply  that  France  is  in  its  deca 
dence  ;  an  erroneous  opinion,  which  the  Republic,  when  it  ceases  to 
repeat  old  history,  and  makes  new  history  for  Europe  and  mankind, 
will  take  care  to  eradicate. 

Great  Britain  distrusts  both  France  and  Germany,  because  Great 
Britain  knows  and  foresees  that  Belgium  and  Holland  would  be  val 
uable  acquisitions  to  France  and  Germany,  inasmuch  as  they  contain 
available  harbors  on  the  English  Channel  and  North  Sea,  which  in 
French  and  German  ownership,  by  partition,  would  give  prestige  to 
French  and  German  commerce  in  the  waters  of  the  world. 

As  to  the  morale  of  European  politics — not  as  professed  and  prop 
agated  in  debates  and  newspapers  in  Great  Britain,  but  as  practiced 
by  Great  Britain  in  its  foreign  affairs — it  will  suffice  here  to  quote 
the  reported  words  of  Lord  Derby  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  18th 
July,  1878,  after  Lord  Beaconsfield,  on  his  first  appearance  fresh  from 
the  Berlin  Congress  adjourned,  had  made  his  statement : 

"  Lord  Derby  generally  approved  of  what  had  been  done  in  Europe, 
"  but  he  questioned  the  value  of  Cyprus,  and  declared  that  he  quitted 
"  the  cabinet  because  he  dissented  from  the  decision  to  seize  a  naval 
"  station  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean,  consisting  of  Cyprus  and  a 
"  point  on  the  main  land,  by  a  secret  expedition  from  India,  without 
"the  consent  of  the  Sultan." 

Great  Britain's  role,  as  the  ally  of  Turkey,  was  to  cooperate  with 
Turkey  against  mutual  enemies,  and  to  cheat  Turkey  for  British  pri 
vate  account.  But  the  official  Turk,  first  soundly  thrashed  by  the 
Russian,  and  secondly  bribed  or  biased  by  the  Briton,  was  too  thor 
oughly  demoralized  to  stand  on  the  San  Stefano  treaty,  in  which  he 
was  one  of  two  negotiating  parties,  or  to  say  uno"  to  an  ally  which 
bears  and  wears  the  prefix  "perfidious"  to  its  "Albion." 

Every  impartial  observer  the  world  over  can  foresee  that  the  great 
power  of  the  north,  giant  Russia,  will  never  cease  Its  efforts  till  the 
Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles  are  so  held  and  controlled  that  Rus 
sia  shall  have  free  and  unrestricted  passage  for  its  commerce  through 
the  straits  between  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Mediterranean,  as  Great 
Britain  has  for  its  commerce  through  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar  between 
the  Mediterranean  Sea  and  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

The  Mediterranean  Sea  is  to  Russia  precisely  what  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  is  to  the  Mississippi  valley.  The  Baltic  Sea  is  closed  by  ice 
to  navigation  in  winter,  like  the  American  lakes  and  the  Hudson  and 
St.  Lawrence  Rivers ;  but  the  straits  to  the  Mediterranean  are  open 
throughout  the  year,  like  the  Mississippi  to  the  Gulf.  And  as  the 
first  Napoleon  through  his  Moscow  campaign,  and  the  third  Napoleon 
through  his  Crimean  campaign,  both  failed  to  drive  Russia  back  from 


44 

the  Black  Sea  towards  the  Baltic,  the  "  manifest  destiny"  of  Russia, 
in  the  providence  of  nations,  should  have  made  France  in  1878  wise 
to  prefer  the  Russians  on  the  Bosphorus  and  in  Constantinople,  to 
increase  of  British  jurisdiction  in  the  Mediterranean  basin. 

Spain,  France,  Italy,  Austria  and  Russia  are  the  five  principal 
powers  which  have  common  interests  in  Mediterranean  navigation, 
whereas  Great  Britain's  interests  are  mainly  in  India,  and  her  ambi 
tion  is  to  dominate  the  Mediterranean  to  protect  her  preferred  route 
to  the  East.  France  built  the  Suez  Canal  across  Egypt  against  the 
opposition  and  misrepresentation  of  Great  Britain,  but  subsequently 
France  allowed  England  to  acquire  part  ownership  of  the  Suez  Canal. 
And  this  present  year  France,  in  shortsightedness  akin  to  blindness, 
and  as  if  in  remembrance  of  Moscow  and  forgetfulness  of  Waterloo, 
cooperated  against  Russia  in  a  way  that  aggrandized  Austria  and 
Great  Britain,  the  two  powers  which  in  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
CTTBty-four  years  ago,  impoverished  and  humiliated  France  to  ag 
grandize  and  exalt  themselves. 

But  the  Berlin  Congress  is  over,  and  to  the  shame  of  France,  which 
returned  home  from  the  Congress  of  Berlin  empty-handed,  if  not  a  dupe, 
Great  Britain  has  added  Cyprus  to  its  Malta  and  Gibraltar  fortifica 
tions  for  its  army  and  navy  in  the  Mediterranean  (a  Berlin  Congress 
made  British  Lake),  where  France,  Italy,  and  Spain  ought  to  be 
absolute,  but  are  not;  and  where,  too,  had  France  and  Italy  at 
Berlin  been  wise,  they  might  always  have  Russia  for  a  safe  and  sure 
ally,  which  Great  Britain  never  is,  by  reason  of  its  shifting  policy  of 
expediency  and  interest ;  because  the  Black  Sea  is  no  more  than  an 
affluent  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  whence  the  Atlantic  Ocean  is 
reached,  as  Lake  Superior  is  but  an  affluent  of  Lake  Erie,  whence 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  is  reached ;  and  because,  also,  Russia  at  Constan 
tinople  could  protect  the  waterway  to  the  ocean-world. 

The  Black  Sea  and  its  tributary  rivers,  which  pass  their  waters 
through  the  straits  via  Constantinople,  are  all  within  the  hydro- 
graphic  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  as  the  Ohio  and  Missouri 
Valleys  are  within  the  hydrographic  basin  of  the  Mississippi  River ; 
and  Constantinople  is  to  Odessa  what  New  Orleans  is  to  St.  Louis ; 
for  St.  Louis  can  only  reach  the  ocean  by  natural  waterway  via  New 
Orleans,  and  Odessa  can  only  reach  the  ocean  by  natural  waterway 
via  Constantinople.  And  Russia  at  Constantinople  would  be  no  more 
a  menace  to  the  Mediterranean  powers  than  is  the  American  Union 
on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  a  menace  to  the  West  India  Islands.  The 
Russian  programme,  which  Great  Britain  has  magnified  into  a  pan 
dora  box  to  poison  the  Mediterranean  air  with  suspicions,  in  truth 
makes  Russia  not  the  threatening  enemy  but  the  natural  ally  of  the 


45 

Mediterranean  powers,  comprising  France,  Italy,  Spain,  and  Greece ; 
Great  Britain,  the  task-master  of  India,  not  included: 

To  regain  Gibraltar  is  a  legitimate  aspiration  in  a  heroic  Spaniard, 
and  Spain  has  a  history  to  beget  patriotism  and  arouse  ambition.  And 
what  better  political  purpose  Spain  can  urge  than  the  retrocession  of 
Gibraltar,  is  past  our  comprehension. 

To  guardian  the  Suez  Canal  is  a  legitimate  French  ambition,  for 
France  promoted  the  Suez  Canal  when  Great  Britain  underrated  it, 
and  disparaged  and  opposed  it.  Over  Egypt,  too,  France  should  have 
retained  the  control  it  had  when  the  Suez  Canal  was  opened,  under  its 
auspices  and  through  its  material  aid,  and  when  Great  Britain  was  in 
the  background,  wondering  if  the  prodigal  Khedive  would  soon  sell 
or  hypothecate  his  Suez  Canal  shares.  In  truth,  France,  had  it  been 
less  jealous  of  Russia  and  more  suspicious  of  Great  Britain,  might 
have  sustained  its  appropriate  role  as  the  chief  Mediterranean  power, 
instead  of  surrendering  to  Great  Britain  that  proud  distinction, 
wrested  from  France  by  diplomacy  that  overreaches  and  by  intrigue 
that  undermines. 

But  the  friends  of  the  Republic  of  France  need  not  despair  nor 
despond,  for  its  diplomacy  may  be  revived  and  its  prestige  restored, 
under  a  progressive  President  elected  by  popular  vote  or  its  equivalent, 
as  in  the  United  States. 

Possibly  Great  Britain  may  strive  to  anticipate  France  and  make 
itself  the  ally  of  Russia,  for  Great  Britain  is  a  money  power  and  its 
"interests"  are  chameleon  in  colors.  But  Russia  has  aims  in  Asia, 
and  can  there  cause  Great  Britain  tribulation,  and  so  France  and 
Italy  may  yet  with  Russia  consult  the  "sick  man"  on  his  straits. 

What  Russia  proposed  to  Great  Britain  anterior  to  the  Crimean 
war  is  of  record  in  official  correspondence;  and  the  acquisition  of 
Cyprus  Island  by  Great  Britain  is  a  testimony  of  the  foresight  of  the 
Emperor  Nicholas,  as  the  fate  of  the  first  Napoleon  is  an  evidence 
that  the  alliance  proffered  to  France  by  Alexander  the  First  would 
have  spared  France  disaster  in  the  field  and  loss  in  treasure  and  life. 
But  the  ways  of  diplomacy  are  "  past  finding  out"  in  advance,  though 
after  events  bear  the  marks  of  its  visitation  in  scars  impossible  of 
misinterpretation.  For  is  not  the  bomb  of  celestial  fire  a  convincing 
proof  when  it  explodes  that  electricity  is  a  force  in  nature  ? 

Is  not  Turkey  shattered  where  riven  by  the  Russian  bolts  of  war 
in  European  Turkey  and  Asia  Minor  ?  Is  not  Turkey  shorn  of  the 
island  of  Cyprus  by  its  defensive  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  signed 
June  4,  1878,  whereby  the  latter  stipulates  to  assist  Turkey  "if  any 
attempt  shall  be  made  in  future  time  by  Russia  to  take  possession  of 
any  further  territories  of  his  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sultan,  in  Asia  "- 


46 

not  in  Europe,  be  it  noted  and  observed?  And  is  not  Turkey  also 
shorn  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  by  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  signed 
July  13,  1878,  which  prescribed  that  the  two  provinces  named  shall 
be  occupied  arid  administered  by  Austria  ?  Is  not  the  evidence  con 
clusive  that  Great  Britain  and  Austria  cooperated  against  Russia, 
after  its  victories  in  war  and  its  San  Stefano  peace  treaty,  to  aggran 
dize  themselves  at  the  expense  of  Turkey  ?  An  orchardist  anxious 
to  save  a  tree  stripped  of  some  of  its  branches  by  a  storm  in  an 
angry  wind,  does  not  cut  off  its  remaining  sound  limbs.  And  yet, 
Austria  and  Great  Britain,  after  the  tree  of  Turkey  had  been  trimmed 
with  Russia's  sword,  from  its  top  limbs  to  the  ground,  lopped  off 
Bosnia,  Herzegovina,  and  Cyprus,  leaving  the  tree  of  Turkey  like  a 
weeping  willow,  with  branches  broken  off  by  a  tempest  and  limbs  cut 
away  with  the  axe — the  first  a  consequence  of  war  in  the  field,  the 
latter  of  craft  in  the  council. 

Dynasties  are  not  governments,  crowned  heads  are  not  nationalities. 
Public  opinion,  founded  not  in  prejudice  or  passion,  but  in  conclusions 
based  on  reason,  is  the  paramount  power.  And  a  dynasty  that  for 
feits  the  confidence  of  the  people  it  reigns,  over  maybe  cast  overboard 
without  injury  to  the  state,  as  a  dead  marine  may  be  cast  overboard 
by  an  admiral  without  injury  to  his  fleet.  Is  not  the  Queen  of  Eng 
land  an  ornamental  feather  in  the  scales  that  weigh  political  power  in 
Great  Britain  ?  Did  not  the  people  of  France,  through  their  depu 
ties  in  the  Assembly,  make  it  palpable  to  an  equivocal  Republican 
President  and  to  Buonapartists  in  1877  that  the  coup  d'etat  of  Decem 
ber  2,  1851,  is  not  possible  a  second  time  ?  And  if  in  past  time  the 
voice  of  the  people  was  smothered  in  superstition  and  ignorance  by 
craft  and  chicanery,  in  present  time  "  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
voice  of  God,"  in  verity  and  earthly  power. 

The  people  of  France  and  the  people  of  Italy  know  and  realize  that 
their  ambassadors  to  the  Berlin  Congress  of  1878  were  as  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  potters  who  manipulated  that  conclave  of  jugglers,  who 
adjourned  grave  questions  and  settled  only  minor  matters. 

In  the  Congress  of  Berlin  the  British  ambassador,  a  lord  by  patent, 
sat  with  a  secret  treaty  with  Turkey  in  his  pocket.  In  a  congress  of 
boys,  a  boy  ambassador  detected  with  a  secret  treaty  in  his  pocket 
under  similar  circumstances  would  have  been  evicted  for  turpitude 
and  disgraced  among  boys.  But  the  Russian-Turkish  war  of  1877-78 
is  of  record,  and  the  San  Stefano  treaty  is  a  historical  milestone  in 
the  road  from  Moscow  to  Constantinople,  Russia's  ultimate  destina 
tion,  to  which  she  directed  her  aims  when  the  Black  Sea  was  a  Turkish 
lake,  and  the  Crimea  Turkish  territory,  as  the  American  Republic 
looked  hopefully  and  expectantly  down  the  Mississippi  River  to  the 


47 

Gulf  of  Mexico,  when  Louisiana  belonged  to  France  and  Florida  to 
Spain.  Happily  for  the  United  States  only  one  foreign  power,  Great 
Britain,  was  jealous  of  its  acquisitions.  But  unhappily  for  Russia, 
which  is  a  creditor  nation  by  great  odds  in  its  account  with  other 
nations  of  help  rendered  and  received,  it  has  enemies  and  jealous 
neighbors  who  begrudge  it  what  it  wins,  and  plot  to  withhold  from  it 
what  it  deserves  and  will  work  on  to  achieve,  for  the  betterment  of 
Christian  Europe. 

Notwithstanding  the  jealousy  of  its  enemies  and  neighbors,  however, 
Russia,  by  the  San  Stefano  treaty  of  1878,  even  as  modified  by  the 
Berlin  Congress,  changed  the  map  of  Europe ;  for  it  made  Servia, 
Montenegro,  and  Roumania  independent  nationalities.  True,  Rou- 
mania  showed  its  unworthiness  of  independence  by  its  baseness  to  its 
benefactor;  but  nevertheless,  Roumania  is  wrested  finally  from  Turkey, 
and  if  portioned  away  hereafter  so  much  the  better,  for  on  its  inhabit 
ants  is  imposed  an  imported  prince  impotent  to  prevent  the  retroces 
sion  of  Bessarabia  to  Russia,  or  block  the  Russian's  way  to  Constan 
tinople.  Servia  is  a  national  nut  which  diplomacy  cannot  crack  to 
divide  its  kernel ;  and  Montenegro  is  a  star  state,  not  a  mould  candle 
to  be  extinguished  with  Austrian  or  British  snuffers.  In  a  word, 
there  are  Christian  fruits  of  wars  past  and  germinating  seeds  of  wars 
to  come,  on  the  Black,  the  JEgean,  the  Adriatic,  and  the  Mediterra 
nean  Seas,  which  will  restore  to  Christian  rule  its  ancient  sites,  and 
make  the  Mediterranean  a  distributing  basin  under  rights  common  to 
all  the  nations  that  have  possessions  within  it,  from  Gibraltar  to 
Odessa  and  the  forks  of  the  Danube. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

IN  the  Berlin  Congress,  which  met  June  13th,  and  adjourned 
July  13,  1878 — a  Congress  wherein  Italy  and  France  fell  short  of 
the  opportunity  and  the  occasion — Russia  did  not  have  the  hearty 
cooperation  of  a  single  power  to  assist  it  to  maintain  the  concessions 
to  the  Christians  it  had  won  in  war  and  secured  by  treaty.  On  the 
contrary,  the  powers  present  appeared  to  make  common  cause  to 
harass  Russia  to  the  limit  imposed  by  that  victor  on  its  capacity  for 
endurance,  to  preserve  the  peace  of  Europe ;  for  a  war  that,  at  its 
outbreak,  would  include  Russia,  Turkey,  Great  Britain,  Austria,  Ser 
via,  Montenegro  and  Roumania,  would  soon  involve  Italy  and  Greece 
and  Germany  and  France,  and  so  become  general  throughout  Europe, 


48 

where  the  embers  of  revolution  were  aglow,  ready  to  blaze,  in  the 
summer  of  1878.  And  against  oppressed  peoples  roused  to  arms,  the 
network  of  dynastic  government  is  but  as  a  spider-web.  Peoples  in 
anger  are  forces  in  nature,  resistless  as  lightning,  hurricane  and  flood. 

Nor  was  Great  Britain,  with  all  its  diplomatic  brag  and  newspaper 
bluster,  its  parliamentary  buncombe  and  its  noisy  preparation  for  war, 
including  its  dramatic  transport  of  troops  from  India  to  Malta — a 
movement  which  included  a  hint  to  Italy  and  France — anxious  for 
actual  hostilities  ;•  because  British  ships  in  the  carrying  trade  around  the 
world  would  have  afforded  fat  prizes  to  fast-going  Alabamas  incorporated 
into  the  Russian  navy ;  for,  clear  as  blue  sky  at  noon-time,  in  sun 
shine,  is  the  fact  that,  in  a  war  between  Russia  arid  Great  Britain, 
Russian  ships  of  the  Alabama  style  will  scour  the  seas  and  make 
prizes  of  merchant  ships.  Great  Britain  breaks  treaties  and  ignores 
treaties;  and,  as  "  curses  come  home  to  roost,"  Great  Britain  will 
suffer  the  consequence  of  her  own  practice,  when  she  plotted  the 
destruction  of  American  commerce,  with  English-built  Alabamas, 
manned  with  English  crews,  to  prey  on  the  commerce  of  the  United 
States.  England's  aim  was  to  sever  the  American  Union,  make  a 
commercial  ally  of  the  cotton  Confederacy,  and  strip  the  North  of  its 
ships  on  the  seas,  so  that  England  could  command  the  ocean-carrying 
trade  of  both  sections.  In  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  England — aboli 
tion  England — cared  as  little  for  the  fact  that  human  slavery,  against 
which  it  had  long  kept  up  a  loud  outcry,  was  the  basis  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  it  gave  aid  to  in  every  conceivable  surreptitious  way,  as 
England,  in  the  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  cared  for  the  fact 
that  the  issue  involved  Christian  emancipation  from  Mahometan  ser 
vitude.  At  Berlin,  Great  Britain  intrigued  to  divide  the  Bulgaria 
created  by  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano,  so  that  Turkey  might  receive 
back  Christian  subjects  released  from  its  rule  by  Russia,  and  thereby 
prolong  its  stay  in  Europe,  where  it  is  a  trespasser. 

Great  Britain  has  party  cries,  but  no  political  principles.  In  its 
cooperative  sympathy  with  the  Southern  Confederacy  it  forswore  its 
moral  convictions  against  human  slavery  and  belied  its  loud-mouthed 
professions  of  philanthropy  for  the  African  in  bondage.  In  its  zeal 
for  Turkey,  so  that  for  service  in  Bulgaria  it  might  ta"ke  pay  in  Cyprus, 
Great  Britain,  at  Berlin,  plotted  and  intrigued  against  the  followers 
of  Christ,  in  Bulgaria,  to  delay  their  deliverance  from  the  followers 
of  Mahomet,  in  Constantinople  ! 

On  the  stage  an  actor  can  change  his  part  according  as  he  may  be 
cast — in  one  play  a  patriot,  in  another  play  an  apostate — because  it 
is  his  profession  to  "hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature"  in  his  imitations 
of  the  characters  in  his  text,  from  night  to  night.  But  nations  are 


49 

aggregations  of  individuals,  and  character  does  not  consist  of  words 
spoken  of  a  man,  for  that  is  reputation — a  thing  of  newspaper  manu 
facture — but  is  the  product  of  a  life,  public  and  private.  Character 
is  pure  metal,  whereas  reputation  may  be  made  up  of  alloys  that  swell 
size,  but  do  not  augment  value.  Thus,  when,  for  illustration,  the 
London  Times  says  so  and  so  of  a  British  politician,  its  praise  exalts 
and  its  censure  depreciates  reputation ;  but  it  does  not  affect  char 
acter,  for  that  is  made  up  not  of  words,  which  are  wind,  but  of  deeds, 
which  are  weights  and  measures.  Hence,  Great  Britain,  long  ago 
called  "  Perfidious  Albion,"  is  perfidious  still,  because,  whilst  it  pro 
fesses  moral  principles,  it  plays  unworthy  tricks  for  shop-keeper  and 
money-lender  ends.  In  the  drama  of  progress,  in  the  interest  of 
civilization,  in  the  last  hundred  years,  Great  Britain  is  immeasurably 
behind  Russia;  for  Russia  is. not  a  rover,  seizing  here  and  there,  but 
a  progressionist,  that  pushes  out  its  frontiers  in  the  domains  of  anti- 
Christ,  to  spread  civilization  and  develop  the  industries  and  the  arts. 
Hence,  Russia  is  a  growing  power,  with  a  destiny  to  fulfill,  whereas 
Great  Britain  is  a  moneyed  power  that  makes  the  credit  side  of  its 
profit  and  loss  account  paramount  to  its  moral  principles  and  religious 
professions.  Russia  abolished  serfage,  and  will  make  other  reforms  as 
bold,  after  it  secures  peace  on  lasting  terms. 

Great  Britain  had  opportunity  to  succor  Turkey  as  an  ally  and 
co-belligerent,  when  Plevna  surrendered  and  before  the  Russians  had 
crossed  the  Balkans ;  and  prior  to  the  Russian  occupation  of  Sophia 
and  Adrianople,  British  and  Austrian  cooperation  might  have  checked 
the  progress  of  Russia,  and  so  preserved  Turkey  nominally  intact  in 
Europe,  leaving  it  to  make  concessions  only  to  public  opinion  in 
matters  of  administration,  without  surrender  of  territory  ;  for,  rather 
than  see  the  Christian  Greek  Church  re-established  in  Constantinople, 
Catholic  Austria  and  Protestant  England  would  plot  against  Russia, 
and  repeat  the  treachery  of  Judas  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  over-fed 
priest-politician  and  the  over-paid  rector-politician  are  unworthy  fol 
lowers  of  the  Saviour  and  His  apostles  ;  for,  with  the  politician  in 
robes  it  is  self,  self,  self,  whereas  with  the  apostles  it  was  everything 
for  the  cause  of  the  Son  of  God  on  the  earth,  in  a  kingdom  founded 
in  unselfish  sacrifice  for  the  common  good  of  mankind. 

But  Great  Britain,  the  miscellaneous  money-lender,  whether  for 
account  of  heaven  or  hell,  and  the  promiscuous  dealer  in  the  neces 
saries  of  life  and  the  poisons  of  illicit  commerce,  let  perish  the  oppor 
tunity  which  tarried  at  Plevna  and  invited  interference ;  and,  in 
selfishness,  looked  on  the  sanguinary  strife  till  Turkey  was  crushed 
and  the  San  Stefano  treaty  had  made  peace  between  the  belligerents. 
And  by  the  San  Stefano  treaty  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  the  inde- 
4 


50 

pendence  of  Servia  (God  bless  Servia  !)  and  Montenegro  (God  bless 
Montenegro!),  and  Roumania  the  treacherous,  was  secured:  and  these 
three  new  independent  nationalities  were,  by  the  Russian-Turkey 
treaty  of  San  Stefano,  added  to  the  European  powers.  Bulgaria,  too, 
after  long  suffering  in  servitude,  was  made  an  embryo  nationality, 
with  enlarged  boundaries  and  a  comprehensive  programme. 

The  Berlin  Congress,  however,  was  called,  and  by  that  wire-worked 
conclave  of  wizards  and  dupes,  the  San  Stefano  treaty  was  revised,  in 
common  jealousy  of  Russia  and  in  the  special  interest  of  Austria  and 
England,  because  the  ambassadors  of  Italy  and  France  were  unfit  for 
their  momentous  missions — a  fact  which  all  intelligent  and  impartial 
Italian  and  French  republicans  feel  arid  realize ;  and  Austria,  in 
exultation  over  Italy  and  France,  occupies  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina, 
and  Great  Britain,  by  a  secret  treaty,. is  in  possession  of  the  island 
of  Cyprus,  whereby  its  Mediterranean  possessions  are  enlarged,  and 
Italy  and  France  are  correspondingly  belittled  as  Mediterranean 
powers.  And  thus  meantime  that  the  Turk — cruel  to  the  Christians 
and  treacherous  to  the  Russians — was  mulcted  by  the  Austrians  and' 
Britons,  Italy  and  France  were  treated  as  gulls,  and  appeased  with 
words.  Woe  to  the  Berlin  ambassadors  of  Italy  and  France! 

What  next  may  transpire  in  European  Turkey  is  in  the  future, 
sealed  from  the  knowledge  of  man.  But  that  the  Berlin  treaty  which 
ignored  Italy  and  France  as  Mediterranean  powers,  aggrandized  Aus 
tria  and  inflated  Great  Britain  with  bluster,  is  merely  a  postponement 
of  a  final  settlement  which  the  powers  did  not  then  dare  to  make,  in 
the  face  of  the  socialistic  and  other  agitations  antagonistic  to  dynastic 
shams,  frauds  and  pensions,  is  patent  to  every  unofficial  subject  in 
Europe.  Servia  and  Montenegro,  however,  both  now  independent — 
for  the  Berlin  Congress  did  not  venture  to  ignore  the  Servia  and 
Montenegro  provisions  of  the  San  Stefano  treaty — occupy  positions 
which  justify  expectations  of  aggrandizement.  In  truth,  the  theme 
of  European  Turkey  bristles  with  possibilities  which  change  shape 
according  to  circumstances,  as  sea  waves  take  form  and  derive  their 
force  from  the  prevailing  wind. 

Russia  and  Turkey,  as  the  two  principals  in  the  war,  did  their  best, 
and  Turkey  made  peace  to  keep  the  Russians  out  of  Constantinople  ; 
for  if  the  Porte  had  crossed  the  Bosphorus  and  fixed  its  head-quarters 
in  Asia  Minor,  and  a  war  of  the  powers  had  ensued,  it  is  safe  to 
predict  that  Turkish  reign  in  European  Turkey  would  have  ended ; 
though  how  the  spoils  might  have  been  divided  it  is  useless  to  consider. 

However,  with  Turkey  razeed  into  disproportion  to  Russia  as  a 
military  power,  Russia  can  contemplate  the  stay  of  the  Turks  in  Con 
stantinople  as  citizens  of  the  United  States  contemplate  the  Spaniards 


in  the  island  of  Cuba.  As  a  Spanish  possession  Cuba  is  not  a  menace; 
but  the  United  States  would  not  tolerate  the  transfer  of  Cuba  to 
Great  Britain,  Germany  or  France.  The  Americans  do  not  covet 
Cuba  nor  want  it  annexed  to  the  Union,  but  the  Americans  would 
interpose  to  prevent  the  transfer  of  Cuba  from  the  possession  of  Spain 
to  a  power  rival  or  competitor  to  the  United  States ;  for  with  Spain 
the  United  States  can  cultivate  reciprocal  commercial  relations,  with 
out  danger  of  serious  misunderstanding.  A  nd  so,  in  like  manner  and 
from  corresponding  cause,  Russia  could  contemplate  Turkey,  as  left 
by  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano,  in  possession  of  Constantinople,  because 
Russia  and  Turkey  could  themselves  carry  out  their  own  treaty  and 
jointly  regulate  the  navigation  of  the  straits  from  the  Black  Sea  to 
the  Mediterranean.  This  reasoning,  clear  when  the  treaty  of  San 
Stefano  was  signed  in  February,  1878,  is  conclusive  since  the  Berlin 
treaty  of  July,  18T8. 

True,  the  British,  who  have  money  to  bribe  corrupt  men  in  office, 
and  who  wear  brass  to  hide  blushing,  say  that  it  is  Russia  which  has 
been  deprived  of  the  fruits  of  conquest,  waged  for  the  deliverance  of 
Christian  populations  from  oppressions  that  darken  history  through 
generations  of  time ;  but  the  truth  is,  Turkey  has  been  surgeoned 
where  previously  it  had  not  been  even  singed ;  and  to  appease  British 
lust,  Christian  emancipation  has  been  indefinitely  postponed,  though 
Turkey  is  weaker  if  not  smaller  than  it  was  left  by  the  treaty  of  San 
Stefano  ;  whereas  Russia,  with  Bessarabia  regained  to  the  Danube 
and  Pruth,  and  Batoum  and  Kars  and  about  nine  thousand  square 
miles  of  contiguous  territory  annexed  in  Asia  Minor,  can  recuperate 
in  patience  for  another  struggle  when  a  propitious  opportunity  recurs; 
for  Russia,  vast  and  powerful  as  it  is,  cannot  stay  its  march  nor  stop 
its  wars  whilst  the  Turk  as  an  enemy  patrols  the  Straits  and  lingers 
in  Europe,  a  scandal  to  the  Christian  Church  and  a  reproach  to  civil 
ized  mankind. 

And  perchance,  whilst  dynasties  and  churches  plot  and  counterplot, 
the  masses  may  exercise  the  inherent  right  of  revolution,  and  make 
the  crowned  heads  of  Europe  bend  and  bow  down  in  the  popular  blast 
against  tyranny  and  titles,  like  reeds  and  willows  in  a  storm. 

Russia  Russianizes  where  it  overruns,  and  the  United  States 
Americanize  where  they  annex.  France  contains  nothing  but  French 
men  in  a  national  sense,  and  all  Germany  is  fatherland  to  Germans. 
Italy,  too,  is  homogeneous,  arid  Spain  is  a  unit.  But  Austria  is  a 
cabinet-piece,  stuck  together  with  diplomatic  glue,  not  a  fusion  of 
affiliating  metals  cast  in  a  mould,  as  bronze  is  a  fusion  of  copper  and 
tin  fluxed  with  zinc  and  lead  to  make  it  a  limpid  fluid  for  a  casting 
satisfactory  to  the  artist's  eye  and  cohesive  to  withstand  the  weather. 


Hungary  is  a  seed-garden  of  discontent ;  and  when  the  hydro- 
graphic  basin  of  the  Elbe  shall  have  been  made  the  model  of  a  polit 
ical  potter's  crock,  Bohemia  will  be  in  Germany. 

Lord  Beaconsfield  is  Colonel  Mulberry  Sellers  developed  into  Mac 
beth  the  ambitious,  with  his  witches,  only  that  his  Duncan  is  in  Con 
stantinople  and  his  witches  are  in  India. 

If  a  Cromwell  were  to  rise  in  England,  a  Wallace  in  Scotland,  and 
an  Emmet  in  Ireland,  and  the  labor  organizations  in  Great  Britain 
would  simultaneously  proclaim  a  Republic,  the  Houses  of  Lords  and 
Commons  would  become  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  a  new  Republic, 
and  the  British  Islands  would  be  United  States,  with  a  neighbor 
Republic  in  France,  across  the  English  Channel,  and  a  sympathetic 
Republic  in  America,  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans. 

The  case  of  R.  A.  Ammon,  the  brakeman,  who  successfully  oper 
ated  a  railroad  during  the  Pittsburgh  riots  in  July,  1877,  when  mob 
rule  prevailed  in  that  city,  where  destruction  was  rampant  from 
Saturday  night  to  Sunday  eve,  under  circumstances  indelibly  dis 
graceful  to  its  military  and  police  authorities  and  civic  population,  is 
an  illustration  of  how  an  improvised  administration,  intuitively  organ 
ized,  might  succeed  in  revolution  organized  out  of  riot,  without  dis 
order  in  civil  administration.  The  people  have  only  to  organize  their 
power  with  wisdom  and  apply  it  without  rashness,  to  make  revolution 
out  of  bondage  into  freedom  a  success  in  permanent  reform. 

And  if  this  be  deemed  too  hopeful  a  view  of  American  adaptability 
or  human  intuition  under  free  institutions  which  germinate  ideas  and 
expedients  for  exigencies  unexpected  and  surprising,  the  example  of 
General  U.  S.  Grant  should  give  peace  to  the  doubting  mind. 

In  May,  1861,  U.  S.  Grant,  a  private  citizen  of  Galena,  Illinois, 
raised  a  company  of  volunteers  in  his  own  neighborhood,  marched 
with  it  to  Springfield,  the  capital  of  Illinois,  and  tendered  his  services 
to  Governor  Yates,  who  turned  his  constituent's  experience  to  prac 
tical  account  in  organizing  the  State  troops ;  for  U.  S.  Grant  had 
served  in  the  Mexican  war,  and  was,  moreover,  a  graduate  of  West 
Point,  the  national  military  school.  Here,  then,  was  material  for  a 
military  schoolmaster,  in  a  soldier  trained  and  tried. 

In  time  of  peace  he  had  retired  to  private  life ;  but  when  secession 
appealed  to  the  sword,  he  reappeared  in  behalf  and  defence  of  the 
Union ;  and  how  persistently  and  successfully  he  waged  war  and  won 
battle  is  accepted  truth  in  the  familiar  history  of  a  pure  patriot  and 
great  commander. 

The  unexampled  cosmopolitan  attentions  paid  U.  S.  Grant  in  for 
eign  lands  attest  to  a  worldwide  appreciation  of  his  conspicuous  mer- 


53 

its,  effulgent  in  fidelity  and  heroism  to  cause  and  country  in  civil  war, 
and  afterwards  in  good  intentions  in  trying  times. 

From  a  private  citizen  U.  S.  Grant  ascended  step  by  step  to  the 
top-landing  of  commander-in-chief  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United 
States  ;  after  a  civil  war  of  four  years  he  was  twice  elected  President 
of  the  United  States ;  and  on  the  expiration  of  his  second  term  as 
Chief  Magistrate,  March  3,  1877,  he  again  returned  to  private  cit 
izenship. 

Honors  are  not  titles,  nor  are  titles  merits.  Deeds  are  finally  only 
represented  by  names,  and  hence  in  after  time,  and  to  posterity,  the 
name  expresses  all,  is  the  symbol  of  everything.  Wherefore  Ulysses 
Simpson  Grant,  or  otherwise  and  popularly  and  significantly  United 
States  Grant,  stands  for  the  whole  subject  full  and  complete,  without 
abbreviation,  reservation  or  contraction. 

And  when  the  European  subject  looks  on  the  American  citizen 
U.  S.  Grant,  and  sees  in  him  an  unassuming  man  without  pretension 
and  without  title,  surely  the  sight  must  suggest  to  his  sober  reflection 
the  vanity  of  hereditary  titles  and  the  costliness  of  royal  perquisites 
and  pensions  paid  to  the  progeny  of  dynastic  wedlock. 

Grant  rose  out  of  the  people,  one  of  themselves,  and,  after  public 
service  in  war  and  in  peace,  returned  back  to  the  people,  one  of  them 
selves  ;  and  his  example  will  be  illustrious  forever  in  a  name  aflame 
with  patriotic  fame ;  for  in  him  is  represented  and  embodied  the  trin 
ity  of  duties  only  possible  in  a  republic — private  citizen,  commander- 
in-chief.  chief  magistrate. 

Those  who  advocate  a  third-term  President  would  mar  the  finished 
picture  of  the  man,  for  the  third-term  thought  implies  more  than  it 
expresses,  and  is  not  consonant  with  the  precedent  set  by  Washington 
and  since  observed  as  a  law  of  sacred  import,  which  cannot' be  misin 
terpreted  to  the  American  people. 

When  France  welcomed  liberty  back  to  Paris,  and  drove  the  red- 
handed  and  incendiary  torch-bearing  communists  from  her  temple 
desecrated  by  their  diabolism,  and  for  the  third  time  consecrated  the 
sacred  edifice  whose  altar-fires  had  been  twice  before  extinguished, 
France  achieved  a  grand  glory  for  army-ridden  Europe. 

To  liberty  in  its  dwelling-place  in  a  republic  a  mob  is  a  foe  as  dan 
gerous  and  destitute  of  reason  as  a  dog  with  the  hydrophobia ;  for 
intelligent  human  beings  prefer  any  and  every  form  of  government  to 
anarchy ;  and  as  the  bayonet  as  an  instrument  of  order  is  the  basis 
of  despotism,  as  the  ballot  as  an  expression  of  power  is  the  basis  of 
republicanism,  the  enemies  of  order  in  free  government  are  more  than 
disturbers  of  the  peace,  and  are  to  be  treated,  after  notice  reasonable 
to  all  not  demons,  like  animals  inoculated  with  the  saliva  of  madness  ; 


54 

because  between  anarchy  and  order  in  a  republic  the  law  must  pre 
vail  or  liberty  succumb  to  anarchy,  the  precursor  to  despotism ;  for 
trust  breakers  in  office  and  charter-clad  offenders  who  betray  invest 
ors  and  wrong  employe's  and  transporters  would  barter  away  a  state 
to  a  central  authority  for  protection,  and  sell  liberty  to  enjoy  spoils  ; 
but  where  intelligent  use  is  made  of  the  ballot  at  the  polls,  abuses  in 
the  public  service,  in  corporation  practice,  courts  of  law  and  else 
where,  can  be  reached  and  abated,  and  remedies  provided  for  all  evils 
curable  by  pure  legislation  and  honest  administration,  from  the  chief 
justice  to  the  street-sweeper.     For  as  "  the  last  shall  be  first  and  the 
first  shall  be  last,"  so  in  a  republic  the  bootblack-boy  may  rise  above 
the  chief  justiceship  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  and  the 
born  heir  to  fortune  may  die  a  beggar.     The  few  make  the  noise,  the 
many  do  the  honest  work  of  life ;  the  tribunals  try  but  a  small  per 
centage  of  the  population  for  offences,  and  the  jails  are  few  and  far 
apart,  showing  that  fidelity  to  law  and  duty  to  society  is  the  rule,  dis 
obedience  to  law  and  dishonesty  to  fellow  man  the  exception  ;  where 
there  is  ventilation  in  the  newspapers,  a  foul  transaction  smells  far 
ther  than  an  orchard  in  blossom,  yet  the  fruit  ripens  in  its  season,  by 
which  time  the  rotten  aspirant  is  in  disgrace;  modest  merit  survives 
in  exquisite  memories  in  the  affections  arid  in  the  books,  but  corrupt 
selfishness,  like  an  ignis  fatuus  in  foul  air  over  decaying  matter  in  a 
morass,  is  a  luminous  exhalation  that  misleads  and  disappoints ;  the 
bad  man  is  on  a  trap-door  with  a  possible  rope  overhead,  sure  oblivion 
beneath  his  feet,  except  as  he  may  serve  for  an  admonition  in  the  ser 
mons  of  prison  chaplains  and  moral  instructors  of  youth.     Apathy, 
too,  is  sometimes  deadly  to  liberty,  as  sleep  is  sometimes  death  in  a 
disguise  that  disarms  suspicion.     In  a  republic  inanition  in  a  citizen 
is  a  crime  against  society,  which  can  protect  itself  from  a  lunatic  by 
confining  him  in  an  infirmary,  whereas  the  citizen  who  omits  to  dis 
charge  his  moral  responsibility  under   the    civil    code  is   protected 
against  incarceration,  because  to  personal  freedom  he  has  a  natural 
right  not  forfeited   to  the  statute ;   for,  though  mentally  defunct  to 
political  duty,  he  is  physically  alive  in  the  social  condition ;  informa 
tion  and   experience   are  knowledge   arid  wisdom,  and  government  is 
exalted   and  pure  in  proportion  as  the  governed  participate  in  public 
affairs  and  adjust  official  conduct  to  a  standard  that  will  bear  scru 
tiny,  satisfy  conscience  and  command  respect.     The  individual  must 
be  a  creditor  in  his  account  with  the  community  in  which  he  is  an 
atom,  possibly  a  light ;   and   in  proportion  as   he  shows   a  balance  to 
his  credit  large  or  small  will  he  be  esteemed  much  or  little  in  the  cir 
cumference  of  the  circle  rippled  by  his  proceedings ;  for  status  is  a 
valuation  put  not  on  promise  but   on  performance;   arid  herein  is  a 


reason  why  a  man  in  conspicuous  office  or  position  who  misdirects  its 
influences  and  misapplies  its  patronage  and  powers,  out  of  office  sinks 
out  of  sight,  and  after  burial  in  the  earth  is  lost  in  oblivion  deep  as 
a  thousand  years  ;  having  strayed  into  forbidden  ways  and  practiced 
unworthy  arts,  his  name  is  cast  out  of  the  vocabulary  of  his  cotem- 
poraries,  his  coadjutors  reproach  him  to  excuse  themselves,  and  the 
public  know  him  no  more ;  and  as  a  luminary  falls,  so  will  its  satel 
lite  disappear  out  of  the  firmament  of  preferment,  where  its  borrowed 
light  is  shed  in  baleful  beams.  A  community  of  stockholders  has 
twice  as  many  eyes  and  ears  as  tongues,  and  sees  and  hears  more 
than  it  says.  The  wicked  vanity  that  underrates  the  constituency  it 
abuses,  and  trusts  fortune  to  prevent  its  conviction  in  the  courts,  is 
helpless  and  without  defence  in  the  tribunal  of  the  people,  where  law 
yers'  words  are  vapors,  and  lies,  like  damp  rockets,  will  not  coruscate. 

The  Philadelphia  soldiers  of  the  Pennsylvania  National  Guard  who 
were  abandoned  to  the  mob  and  multitude  at  Pittsburgh,  Saturday 
night,  July  21,  1877,  under  circumstances  indescribably  disgraceful 
to  the  local  military  and  police  authorities,  and  who,  having  success 
fully  defended  themselves  throughout  the  night,  in  a  Round  House, 
whither  they  had  been  improperly  ordered  by  Major  General  A.  L. 
Pearson,  of  Pittsburgh,  marched  out  of  that  city  Sunday,  July  22, 
1877  (pursued  by  a  mob  of  baser  beasts  than  bulls  in  a  herd,  which 
mob  fired  all  its  shots  from  the  rear,  and  so  did  deeds  of  murder  on 
the  holy  day),  afterwards  returned  to  Pittsburgh  with  recruits  arrived 
out  from  home  and  fellow-soldiers  from  the  interior  and  border 
counties,  and  reoccupied  the  sc'ene  of  riot;  in  order  that  Pittsburgh 
should  see  and  know,  and  to  make  Pittsburgh  feel  and  realize  in  the 
spectacle  of  its  submission,  that  the  law  is  paramount  and  the  State 
supreme  in  every  part  of  Pennsylvania. 

Where  the  law  is  defied  free  government  does  not  discuss  the  cause 
of  outbreak  against  order,  life  or  property.  It  restores  peace,  makes 
arrests,  assesses  damages,  and  considers  a  remedy  for  prevention. 
And  the  Union  is  so  extensive,  and  its  spread-out  population  of  readers 
and  thinkers  is  so  well  informed  on  events  past  and  present,  that  a 
local  demonstration,  whether  aggravated  for  political  party  purposes 
or  for  arson,  pillage,  and  murder,  is  followed  by  instant  preparation 
to  occupy  the  scene  of  riot ;  yes,  that  is  the  word — riot — for  insurrec 
tion  is  farther  from  the  intentions  of  a  Pennsylvanian  than  is  a  vigil 
ance  committee  in  time  of  disorder  for  redressment.  And  the  arson 
and  pillage-approving  population  of  Pittsburgh,  quiescent  where  the 
Sunday  mob  in  the  public  streets  assassinated  four  strangers  of  the 
Pennsylvania  National  Guard,  sent  to  Pittsburgh  from  Philadelphia 
by  the  State  officers  in  authority  at  Harrisburg,  was  meek  and  quiet 


56 

(and  contrite  concerning  damages),  whilst  the  military  possessed  Pitts 
burgh  and  forced  it  to  eat  "  humble  pie,"  meantime  that  railway 
traffic  was  resumed  and  trains  departed  and  arrived  on  schedule  time. 

When  Governor  J.  F.  Hartranft  arrived  out  at  Pittsburgh  with 
Pennsylvania  troops,  R.  A.  Amrnon,  the  brevetted  brakeman,  resigned; 
and  then  Pittsburgh  had  opportunity  in  leisure  to  meditate  the  con 
sequences  of  its  mob  sympathies,  its  Saturday  night  treacheries,  and 
its  Sabbath-day  depot  fires  and  highway  murder  of  strangers  under 
orders,  in  the  service  of  the  Commonwealth. 

The  crater  of  a  volcano  in  eruption  is  an  insecure  place  against  the 
lava,  cinder  and  muddy  matter  cast  up  out  of  a  "bottomless  pit;" 
but  the  place  of  torment  for  sinners  doomed,  with  its  mayor  in  a 
paroxysm,  its  police  in  a  frenzy,  its  mob  cantankerous  and  conten 
tious,  and  its  stokers  overhot  from  overwork  at  its  fires,  as  described 
by  painters  in  colors  and  poets  in  words,  is  a  place  of  mercy  com 
pared  with  pandemonium  Pittsburgh  on  that  saturnalian  Sunday, 
July  22,  1877. 

Dyeing  certain  colors  is  a  lost  art ;  and  lying,  notwithstanding  the 
antiquity  of  the  practice,  is  still  an  imperfect  disguise  and  a  poor 
substitute,  else  the  efforts  of  the  willing  wills  and  weak  minds  that 
attempted  to  mitigate  the  guilt  of  Pittsburgh  by  the  manufacture  of 
imitation  truth  in  crooked  afterthoughts  would  have  had  a  less  mor 
tifying  termination  ;  but  the  charcoal  in  the  pyres  along  the  railway 
tracks  was  too  black,  and  the  blood  of  the  soldiers  shot  from  behind 
was  too  red  on  the  stones,  and  the  crime  of  Pittsburgh  was  too  fully 
recorded  in  its  own  and  other  newspapers  of  the  day  and  in  after 
documents  and  reports,  for  lie  distilled  from  fiction  to  wash  out  its 
stains.  And  so  Pittsburgh,  over  its  dress  suit  of  smoke,  has  a  sur- 
,tout  of  bills  for  Allegheny  County  to  pay.  The  "  insurrection  "  plea 
was  a  false  key  to  open  the  Sinking  Fund  of  Pennsylvania,  which 
contains  assets  coveted  for  damages  payable  for  the  property  destroyed 
during  the  Pittsburgh  riot  in  July,  1877,  due  not  from  the  State  but 
from  Allegheny  County.  The  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  however, 
is  a  vigilance  committee  of  one,  with  the  veto ;  and  in  1870  Governor 
Geary,  with  a  veto  that  exploded  like  a  bombshell,  saved  the  Sinking 
Fund  of  Pennsylvania  from  robbery.  The  people  of  Pennsylvania 
all  know  who  is  Governor,  and  hold  that  functionary  responsible  for 
all  legislation,  except  bills  passed  over  his  veto.  Deriving  the  veto 
power  from  the  Constitution,  he  is  expected  to  use  it  for  cause,  or 
pass  out  of  office  and  disappear  from  political  life.  To  assent  that  a 
riot  was  an  "insurrection,"  to  substitute  the  State  for  Allegheny 
County  in  the  matter  of  damages,  would  sink  the  Governor  out  of 
sight.  But  before  it  can  reach  the  Governor  a  bill  must  be  passed  by 


57 

both  branches  of  the  Legislature.     Allegheny  County  is  liable,  and 
its  resources  are  ample,  and  that  is  enough  for  justice. 

And  thus  will  it  be  again,  if  that  European  transplant  called 
"socialism"  and  "communism,"  both  parasites  in  a  republic,  should 
rise  in  arms  against  the  authorities  in  any  city  in  the  United  States. 
When  peace  is  disturbed  the  law  is  not  palaver  but  process  with  force, 
and  order  is  to  be  maintained  at  whatsoever  cost  to  its  enemies  ;  appli 
cation  for  military  aid  is  a  dernier  resort,  but  where  invoked  for 
sufficient  cause  it  ought  to  be  used  with  discretion  and  made  effective 
against  disorder.  Especially  is  the  American  Union  the  wrong  field 
for  the  agrarian  from  abroad,  because  his  certificate  of  naturalization, 
which  is  proof  of  his  promotion  to  citizenship,  is  not  a  license  to  sow 
treason,  seize  property,  or  overturn  the  social  system  which  is  the  pro 
duct  of  civilization  since  the  deluge.  In  a  republic  the  state  is  the 
aggregate  of  all  the  people  in  it,  held  together  by  its  laws,  enacted 
by  representatives  chosen  by  ballot  at  the  polls.  The  minority  cannot 
enact  new  laws,  but  by  discussion  and  appeal  may  make  proselytes  to 
its  opinions,  till  it  reverses  positions  with  the  opposition  and  becomes 
in  turn  the  majority  party ;  whereupon  it  may  graft  its  measures  on 
the  statutes.  Violence  or  intimidation,  however,  is  not  only  not 
allowable  but  is  punishable,  and  as  law-breakers,  life-takers,  and 
property-wreckers  incur  punishment,  so  their  abettors,  for  head  and 
heart  guiltiness,  deserve  more  than  reprobation.  If  a  discontented 
adult  could  on  option  turn  political  surgeon  and  butcher  the  law, 
according  to  his  interest  or  his  hate,  the  hand  that  would  smite 
the.  state  would  be  lifted  against  life,  and  society  would  retro 
grade.  And  this  consideration  makes  the  demagogue  an  outlaw  in 
manhood,  for  he  knows  the  end  to  which  his  arts  tend ;  but  the 
domestic  and  imported  mischief-makers  are  few,  and  mob  outbreak 
like  yellow  fever  is  only  an  occasional  visitation  in  malarious  spots, 
here  and  there,  in  the  Union ;  an  uprising  of  wicked  malcontents 
would  provoke  a  concentration  and  explosion  of  opposition  force  that 
would  disperse  them  to  the  four  winds,  as  a  dynamite  blast  scatters 
quarry  stones  in  atoms  through  the  air. 

The  world  craves  not  a  new  religion,  nor  will  it  abandon  itself  to  the 
moral  darkness  of  irreligion.  Christianity  has  done  for  mankind  more 
than  all  other  religions  summed  together ;  and  if  the  Turk  reign  at 
Philippi  where  Paul  preached,  that  is  because  in  1878  England  had 
for  its  idol  of  popular  worship  the  boastful  "Disraeli,"  the  Queen  of 
England  being  "  Empress  of  India,"  where  there  are  240,000,000  of 
Hindoos  and  Mahometans,  against  31,857,338  Christian  subjects  in 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  England's  temple  is  the  shop  and  work 
shop,  and  England's  God  is  the  "almighty  dollar,"  to  which  her 


58 

homage  is  loyal,  if  selfish ;  England's  religion  is  not  Christ  crucified, 
but  interest  money  accrued  and  to  accrue.  On  "  British  interests," 
expressed  and  reserved,  hang  all  the  Acts  of  Parliament,  all  the 
Proclamations  of  the  Queen.  For  the  world,  England,  through  half 
a  century,  has  been  commercial  broker  and  commission  agent.  But 
this  business  is  now  open  to  competition,  and  in  commercial  supremacy 
Great  Britain  is  each  year  less  absolute.  Of  course,  as  she  "weakens 
in  the  knees,"  she  becomes  lustier  in  the  lungs,  to  frighten  capital 
where  she  cannot  harm  it.  England  is  overpeopled  and  London  is 
overgrown,  considering  its  proximity  to  the  land's  end  in  England, 
Wales,  and  Scotland,  W7hich  have  these  areas  and  populations,  to  wit: 

Square  Miles.          Census.  Population. 

England,  ....  50,922  1871  21,495,131 
Wales,  .....  7,397  1871  1,217,135 

Scotland,         ....       31,324          1871  3,360,018 


Total,  Great  Britain,        .         .  89,643  26,072,284 

Ireland, 32,481  1871  5,411,416 

Isle  of  Man  and  Channel  Islands,         394  1871  144,638 

Army,  Navy,  Merchant  Seamen,  1871  229,000 


Great  Britain  and  Ireland,        .     122,518  31,857,338 


New  York,      .         .      <  .         .       47,156          1870  4,357,647 

Connecticut,   .         .       '  .         .         4,674          1870  537,454 


New  York  and  Connecticut,     .       51,830  4,895,101 

New  York  and  Connecticut,  which  in  joint  area  are  larger  than 
England,  jointly  contain  but  22  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  Eng 
land  ;  so  that  England  contains  more  than  four  times  the  joint  popula 
tion  of  New  York  and  Connecticut,  notwithstanding  that  New  York 
State  contains  New  York  City,  Brooklyn,  Buffalo,  Albany,  Rochester, 
indeed  eight  of  the  fifty  principal  cities  in  the  United  States ;  and 
Connecticut  contains  New  Haven  and  Hartford,  two  of  the  fifty  prin 
cipal  cities  in  the  United  States. 

1841.  1851.  1861.  1871. 

Population  of  Ireland,    8,175,124    6,515,794    5,764,543    5,411,416 

The  famine  in  Ireland,  in  1847,  caused  by  the  failure  of  the  crops 
of  that  year,  particularly  its  food  staple,  the  potato,  is  not  an  expla 
nation  of  the  steady  decrease  in  population  in  each  decade  since  1841. 
Great  Britain  imports  more  than  half  the  wheat  consumed  by  its  popu 
lation  ;  and,  as  the  palmy  days  of  its  foreign  trade  are  past,  emigration 


59 

from  Great  Britain  will  unquestionably  increase  and  resident  popula 
tion  diminish  in  England  as  in  Ireland.  Foreign  trade  is  uncertain  ; 
and  as  Great  Britain  loses  its  industrial  prestige  and  customers  for 
its  manufactures  in  foreign  markets,  will  not  London,  which  by  the 
census  of  1871  contained  3,251,804  of  population,  decline  like  other 
commercial  centres  that  preceded  it  in  Europe?  London  is  too  large 
to  subsist  on  the  home  trade  of  an  island  in  the  ocean,  not  twice  the 
size  of  Newfoundland.  From  London  to  Liverpool,  by  railway  across 
England,  the  distance  is  201  miles.  From  New  York  to  San  Fran 
cisco,  across  the  United  States,  by  railway,  the  distance  is  3321  miles. 
Between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  seaports  of  the  American  Union 
there  are  three  thousand  miles  of  prolific  interior  country,  sure  to 
contain,  in  time  not  distant,  two  hundred  millions  of  inhabitants. 
Here  is  a  prospect  for  a  home  trade  very  different  from  the  outlook 
from  London  and  Liverpool.  Venice  and  Genoa  had  a  distant  trade, 
and  lost  it.  The  glory  of  foreign  empire  has  departed  from  Rome, 
yet  Rome  is  the  capital  of  Italy  nationalized,  and  is  grand  in  its 
ancient  ruins.  And  although  the  glory  of  commercial  dominion  over 
a  vast  area  will  leave  London,  yet  London  will  still  be  the  capital  of 
the  island  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  Macaulay's  New  Zealander,  who 
will  inevitably  appear,  may  contemplate  its  ruins,  and  contrast  its 
vastness  in  desolation  with  its  illustrious  predecessors  that  flourished, 
each  a  cynosure  for  a  time,  and  then  declined  towards  oblivion,  but 
not  into  it ;  because  the  historical  inventory  of  the  ruins  of  cities 
abandoned  to  decay  is  a  perennial  entertainment  to  the  antiquarian 
and  the  student,  which  latter  comprises  all  the  ages  of  man  ;  for  the 
wise  are  seldom  young,  and  the  cultivated  man  at  three-score  years  is 
as  zealous  a  student  as  the  better  boy  at  school.  The  male  animal 
that  is  a  baby,  boy,  and  man,  in  succession,  if  endowed  with  more 
than  average  intellect,  is  a  thinking  and  remembering  machine,  from 
the  time  he  can  con  the  alphabet  till  reason  leaves  his  head  or  life 
abandons  his  body. 

"The  Mutual  Admiration  Society,"  made  up  of  rich  and  prosperous 
Americans  and  titled  and  snobby  Englishers,  which  was  in  full  blast 
preparatory  to  the  negotiation  of  the  Washington  treaty  of  May  8, 1871, 
that  was  to  do  much  for  mankind,  and  elevate  human  nature  to  a 
higher  standard  in  this  world,  preliminary  to  a  still  higher  one  in  the 
next,  seems  to  have  moved  the  unbelief  of  one  observer  of  men  and 
matters,  who  wrote  the  following  letter,  copied  from  a  newspaper  of 
November  15,  1876.  Its  date,  April  10,  1871,  it  will  be  seen,  is 
anterior  to  the  Washington  treaty,  signed  May  8,  1871 ;  and  its  pub 
lication,  November  15,  1876,  it  will  also  be  noticed,  is  prior  to  the 
Halifax  Fishery  award,  made  November  23.  1877. 


60 

"ENGLISH  TACTICS  IN  AMERICA. 

APRIL  10,  1871. 

"  GEN.  U.  S.  GRANT, 

"  President  of  the  United  States. 

"  HONORED  SIR  : — Distinguished  men  in  distinguishing  office  are 
beset  with  too  many  flatterers  and  hear  too  few  truth-tellers.  And 
yet,  to  rulers  of  men,  facts  are  as  indispensable  as  food. 

"Your  answer  to  General  Buckner,  in  1862,  drew  my  attention 
to  you,  and  enlisted  my  confidence  and  good  wishes.  Your  military 
case,  however,  as  you  know,  is  made  up  in  the  record  of  the  rise  and 
fall  of  an  unholy  rebellion.  And  now,  in  the  high  office  which  is  the 
people's  reward  for  services  rendered  them  in  the  field,  in  a  crisis 
which  put  in  jeopardy  the  aspirations  of  mankind,  you  are  again  on 
trial,  this  time  as  Civil  Magistrate,  charged  with  the  administration 
of  the  aflairs  of  a  great  nation. 

"And  now  to  the  purpose  of  this  letter,  which  is,  to  caution  you 
to  beware  of  British  diplomacy,  which,  like  all  European  diplomacy, 
literally  translated,  is  simply  lying  according  to  law  ! 

"  The  Dominion  of  Canada  was  conceived  in  hostility  to  the  United 
States ;  and  American  statesmen  owe  it  to  their  posterity  to  sunder 
the  zone  of  British  territory  which  flanks  the  Republic  on  the  north, 
and  has  its  termini  in  the  far  apart  islands  of  Newfoundland  and 
Vancouver. 

"  The  treaty  of  the  15th  June,  1846,  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  which  surrendered  an  opportunity  to  abut  our 
boundary  against  Russia,  at  54°40',  to  which  line  Polk  and  Buchanan 
avowed  that  our  title  was  'clear  and  unquestionable,'  is  a  standing 
shame  to  American  statesmanship.  And  the  interpretation  subse 
quently  given  to  that  treaty,  by  Great  Britain,  to  cover  the  island 
of  San  Juan,  is  a  lesson  which  should  not  be  forgotten  at  this  time. 

"  I  have  been  in  England,  and  do  not  much  wonder  at  the  temper 
of  its  waning  ruling  class  towards  the  United  States.  Jealousy,  envy, 
covetousness  are  feelings  difficult  of  eradication.  The  United  States 
are  overshadowing  the  British  Isles.  England's  power  is  faded  on  the 
continent,  and  she  is  in  dread  lest  her  hoarded  wealth  be  molested. 

"  But  instead  of  looking  to  Africa,  Australia,  etc.,  for  new  fields 
and  new  markets,  she  continually  aims  to  clog  and  thwart  what,  to  a 
comprehensive  vision,  is  the  '  manifest  destiny'  of  these  States. 

"  If  Great  Britain  were  driven  out  of  American  waters,  the  two 
nations  could,  thereafter,  be  brought  into  relations  of  genuine  frater 
nity.  And  until  that  event  takes  place,  or  British  rule  be  limited  to 
territory  east  of  Lake  Superior,  the  American  heart  Avhich  may  yearn 


01 

to  find  in  Great  Britain  a  Mother  Country,  will  continue  to  find  instead 
a  step-mother  country  given  to  officious  intermeddling. 

"  British  territory  cannot  be  Americanized  under  British  rule,  as 
witness  the  animus  of  the  indwellers  of  that  strip  of  land  between 
Niagara  and  Detroit  Rivers,  across  which  railroad  companies  send 
freights  and  passengers  to  and  from  New  York  and  Michigan. 

"  The  valleys  of  the  Saskatchewan  and  Red  Rivers  will  never  be 
Americanized  whilst  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Dominion,  or  any 
other  British  authority,  even  though,  of  necessity  (not  choice),  the 
railroads  which  may  traverse  them  be  connected  with  the  railroads  of 
Minnesota. 

"British  jurisdiction  fosters  opposition  to  the  United  States,  exactly 
as  a  long  British  border  tempts  and  promotes  smuggling  into  the 
United  States. 

"  Diplomacy  and  policy,  more  than  arms,  made  the  greatness  of 
Britain.  By  diplomacy  and  policy  she  will  make  a  bad  neighbor  of 
the  Dominion  of  Canada,  even  as  she  makes  corrupt  tools  in  the 
Washington  lobby. 

"  Do  not  mistake  me.  I  am  not  an  enemy  to  Great  Britain.  On 
the  contrary,  I  appreciate  the  bulwark  she  made  herself  against  the 
reactionary  revolutions  and  usurpations  of  the  continent.  Never 
theless,  Great  Britain  must  be  made  to  'accept  the  situation'  in  the 
New  World,  and  to  back  out  of  the  way  of  American  expansion  and 
progress. 

"You,  yourself,  know  full  well  that  what  Great  Britain  did  during 
the  rebellion,  prolonged  the  rebellion ;  that  her  acts,  alike  of  omission 
as  of  commission,  disclosed  an  impatience  to  see  the  Union  dissevered; 
that  she  did  cause  the  disappearance  of  American  shipping  from  the 
ocean  carrying  trade  between  American  and  foreign  ports.  You 
know,  too,  that,  before  the  American  public,  Great  Britain  is  under 
indictment.  And  now,  finally,  what  the  American  people  have  a 
right  to  expect  is,  that  British  diplomatists  shall  not  once  more  hum- 
lug  American  politicians  ! 

"Seward's  Alaska  purchase  and  diplomatic  expulsion  of  the  French 
from  Mexico  will  jointly  perpetuate  his  statesmanship. 

"  What  page  in  American  history  is  more  important  than  Jeffer 
son's  acquisition  of  Louisiana  ? 

"  Folk's  administration  acquired  California — a  most  potential  and 
momentous  acquisition ;  but  the  treaty  of  the  15th  June,  1846,  with 
Great  Britain,  was  the  mill-stone  which  sunk  into  oblivion  the  good 
deeds  of  Folk's  reign. 

"  Under  the  indictment  found  against  Great  Britain,  in  the  early 
documents  of  your  administration,  newspaper  opinions,  in  England, 


02 

were  expressed  in  deeper  contrition  than  at  present  time.  Then  it 
was  even  suggested,  here  and  there,  in  some  of  the  newspapers,  that 
in  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims  British  territory  might  be  ceded 
to  the  United  States. 

"  Latterly,  however,  expounders  of  English  public  opinion  have 
grown  less  penitent ;  and  in  lieu  of  willingness  to  eat  '  humble  pie,' 
the  British  lion  is  pricked  into  effort  to  imitate  the  ominous  growl  of 
yore,  when  it  roamed  the  jungle  in  India,  and  before  it  was  made  a 
meek  denizen  of  the  zoological  garden  in  London." 


As  in  present  time  the  administration  of  Thomas  Jefferson  is  uni 
versally  commended  throughout  the  Union  for  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana,  and  the  administration  of  James  K.  Polk  is  credited  with 
out  stint  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  acquisition  of  California, 
so  hereafter  and  in  full  measure  of  thankfulness  will  the  administra 
tion  of  Andrew  Johnson  (W.  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State)  be 
praised  for  the  acquisition  of  Alaska  and  the  Aleutian  Islands; 
whereby  Russia  and  the  United  States  clasped  hands  across  Behring 
Strait,  and  the  rover  of  the  seas  and  squatter  on  islands  where  the 
owner  is  in  poverty  or  the  natives  are  defenceless  is  shut  out  from 
fortifying  a  Malta  in  the  North  Pacific  Ocean. 

The  precedent  furnished  by  Great  Britain  in  the  ruthless  extinction 
of  the  Transvaal  Republic  in  1877,  and  the  annexation  of  its  territory 
to  her  possessions  in  Africa,  would  justify  the  United  States,  as 
against  Great  Britain,  in  converting  the  provinces  of  British  Colum 
bia  and  Manitoba  into  Territories  and  embryo  States  of  the  Union. 
And  why  should  not  Great  Britain  have  the  "  ingredients "  of  her 
drugged  "  chalice"  "  commended  to  her  own  lips  "? 


CHAPTER   VII. 

SINCE  the  4th  July,  1776,  when  the  thirteen  colpnies,  all  on  At 
lantic  tidewater  (New  Hampshire  the  northernmost,  Georgia  the 
southernmost,  Pennsylvania  the  "keystone"),  resolved  themselves 
into  "  free  and  independent  States,"  marvellous  events  have  trans 
pired,  tending  to  overturn  dynasties,  expose  the  sham  of  kingcraft, 
and  ameliorate  the  condition  of  mankind,  under  ratified  treaties  and 
written  constitutions. 

The  fiction  of  "the  divine  right  of  kings"  has  perished  from  the 
earth ;  hereditary  subjects  have  wrung  concessions  from  hereditary 


63 

rulers ;  Europe  has  been  rectified  in  places,  remodelled  in  parts ; 
Russia,  developed  into  a  colossal  civilizing  power,  grows  and  spreads : 
Germany  is  moulded  into  a  homogeneous  empire ;  Italy  is  a  compact 
and  intact  nationality.  And  France,  the  fore-front  of  the  world's 
stage  when  nations  were  in  the  cast  of  actors,  in  the  seven  years 
since  the  German  war,  has  shown  wise  humility  in  calm  self-restraint; 
has  elevated  still  higher  than  before  the  arts  of  peace ;  and  meanwhile 
has  evinced  a  trust  in  her  own  capabilities  and  resources,  under  cir 
cumstances  and  in  ways  that  vindicate  the  Republic,  raised  up  out  of 
the  ruins  of  the  empire  and  the  ashes  of  the  commune,  as  the  form 
of  government  best  fitted  for  the  French  people,  in  this  third  genera 
tion  of  political  revolution,  furnace  ordeal  and  fiery  trial.  The  third 
Republic,  which  demolished  the  empire  and  destroyed  the  commune, 
its  two  enemies  and  adversaries,  one  on  either  side,  now  stands  "  a 
pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night;"  and  no  despot 
can  make  it  vanish  nor  demagogue  make  it  dark. 

True,  the  face  of  Europe  is  still  freckled  with  Heligoland,  Malta 
and  Gibraltar,  and  with  spot  powers  in  court-plaster  patches  between 
Skager  Rack  and  Dover  Strait,  and  between  the  river  Pruth  and  the 
Strait  of  Otranto.  But  considering  how  much  has  been  compassed 
in  the  rectification  of  European  boundaries  in  the  last  twenty  years, 
the  prospect  is  cheering  that  the  time  is  not  distant  when  Europe  will 
be  apportioned  among  less  than  half  a  score  of  nationalities  all  Chris 
tian,  the  Turk  retired ;  and  that  then  the  nations  of  Europe  will  at 
last  be  wise  enough  to  live  in  peace  with  each  other,  content  to  allow 
distant  peoples  to  govern  themselves,  and  leave  intercontinental  inter- 
trade  to  regulations  prescribed  in  treaties. 

The  time  will  soon  have  gone  by  for  partitioning  off  the  earth  among 
dynasties  supported  sumptuously  for  breeding  stock  through  royal 
marriages  for  diplomatic  ends ;  in  Europe  nowadays  nationalities  com 
mand  paramount  consideration,  and  the  reigning  houses  rule  not  by 
"  divine  right,"  but  as  the  constituted  and  installed  heads  of  the  gov 
ernments  ;  for,  after  all,  an  empire  is  but  another  name  for  a  state, 
and  from  an  autocracy  to  a  democracy  the  distance  is  but  a  bridge  of 
spans  on  different  plans,  whatever  may  be  said  about  constitutional 
monarchy,  with  a  pensioned  household  and  a  class  made  noble  by 
patent,  as  if  a  patent  of  nobility  were  a  gauge  of  merit,  when  it  is 
only  evidence  of  a  machine-made  honor  or  a  prize-ticket  gift ;  for  a 
patent  cannot  ennoble  a  name  or  make  a  name  great,  because  true 
greatness  is  the  homage  paid  by  mankind  to  public  benefactors  for 
unselfish  service ;  and  it  is  with  men  as  with  books  and  battles,  only 
one  here  and  there  serving  to  make  a  fame  or  mark  an  epoch  or  era 
in  the  chronology  of  time. 


64 

Great  events  in  America,  due  to  patriotic  effort  and  self-denial, 
have  wrought  out  grand  results  to  universal  man  in  a  new  nation  and 
in  the  old  world.  The  government  of  the  United  States  has  withstood 
attack  from  without  and  also  from  within,  has  had  foreign  wars  and  a 
civil  war,  and  was  strong  enough  to  triumph  in  both  ordeals.  Slavery, 
the  graft  of  Great  Britain,  has  been  extirpated,  and  now  there  is  not 
a  seed  of  poison  in  the  Constitution  to  germinate  a  parasite  or  justify 
a  reproach.  And  the  corrupt  lobbyist,  bribe-taker  and  trust-betrayer, 
the  corporation  anaconda  and  the  ring  boa-constrictor,  would  fain  re 
habilitate  as  conservatives  good  as  Tweed  and  his  coadjutors,  who, 
having  amassed  millions  contrary  to  honesty  and  duty,  if  let  alone 
and  not  molested  or  exposed,  would  advocate  low  taxes,  civil  service 
reform,  economy  in  corporation  practice,  and  dividends  to  stock 
holders.  But  the  sword  of  justice  is  unsheathed,  and  offenders  fear 
lest  where  it  may  not  smite  with  its  edge  it  may  smack  with  its  flat 
side.  The  uneasy  sinner  is  the  dishonest  man  found  out.  And  for 
the  hypocrite  who  delivers  himself  of  his  moral  lecture  from  the  chim 
ney-top,  and  descends  thence  by  the  flue  to  emerge  sooted  from  the 
cellar,  or  makes  the  editorial  column  or  the  official  corporation  report 
a  vehicle  for  deceptive  untruth,  exposure  is  sure  disgrace  as  contempt 
is  sore  punishment ;  because  the  offender  who  may  indurate  his  face 
and  banish  the  blush  from  his  cheek  cannot  deaden  the  sensitive 
nerves  between  his  five  senses  and  his  mental  reflections. 

For  bankrupts  in  reputation  look  not  alone  among  delinquent 
debtors  in  ordinary  and  unofficial  transactions,  but  also  to  those  who 
betrayed  official  trust,  and  after  investigation  or  trial  were  hurled 
down  from  the  pinnacle  of  high  esteem  into  the  dusty  way  where  the 
tramp  travels. 

As  a  political  coupling  the  Constitution  is  potential  to  hold  together 
the  train  of  States  from  Maine  to  California ;  and  all  the  mending 
the  Constitution  needs  is  to  make  the  presidential  term  six  years  in 
stead  of  four,  render  the  incumbent  ineligible  for  re-election,  and 
guard  the  franchise  and  the  electoral  return  against  fraud. 

All  attempts  to  found  royalty  in  North  America  have  failed,  tragi 
cally  and  ignominiously.  Mexico  has  had  two  emperors,  Iturbide 
and  Maximilian,  whose  short  reigns  are  bloody  chapters  in  its  event 
ful  history ;  the  first-named  was  shot  after  a  trial  in  1824,  the  last- 
named  was  shot  after  a  trial  in  1867 ;  and  these  two  tearful  lessons 
will  not  be  lost  on  diplomatists,  adventurers  and  demagogues. 

The  progress  of  population  in  the  nation  of  the  United  States  is 
without  precedent,  as  will  be  seen  in  what  follows. 

The  estimated  number  of  inhabitants  in  the  colonies  represented  in 
the  Congress  at  Philadelphia  in  1775  was  3,000,000. 


At  that  time  the  colonies  ranked  in  population  Virginia  first,  Massa 
chusetts  second,  Pennsylvania  third,  Maryland  fourth.  New  York 
was  equalled  by  Connecticut,  North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina. 
Maryland  contained  62,035  more  of  population  than  New  York,  and 
62,034  less  than  Pennsylvania.  The  original  colonies  all  abutted  on 
tidewater,  and  among  the  three  millions  of  population  are  included 
Tories  who  were  averse  to  independence  and  non-combatants  in  love 
with  peace. 

The  first  census  of  the  nation  of  the  United  States  was  taken  in 
1790,  so  that  in  all  there  have  been  nine  decennial  censuses,  beginning 
with  1790  and  including  1870.  And  here  is  the  record  made  of  the 
aggregate  population  at  each  census : 

1790.     1800.     1810.     1820.     1830.     1840.     1850.     1860.     1870. 
3,929,214  5,308,483  7,239,881  9,633,822  12,866,020  17,069,453  23,191,876  31,443,321  38,558,371 

According  to  the  ninth  census  of  the  United  States,  taken  in  1870, 
there  were  of  native-born  inhabitants  32,901,142. 

Foreign-born  inhabitants  5,657,229. 

The  population  of  the  United  States,  consequently,  in  1870  com 
prised  eighty-five  per  cent,  of  native-born  and  fifteen  per  cent,  of 
foreign-born  population. 

Unfortunately  America  is  a  misnomer,  as  to  call  England  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  a  misnomer ;  for  Christopher  Columbus,  not  Americus 
Vespucius,  discovered  America,  and  England  is  Saxon-Norman,  and 
America  is  Celtic-Teutonic.  In  proof  of  this,  attention  is  invited  to 
the  nationalities  of  the  foreign-born  population  of  the  United  States 
in  1870. 


Ireland,  .  .  1,855,827 
All  Germany,  .  1,690,533 
England,  .  .  550,924 
All  British  America,,  493,464 
Scotland,  .  .  140,835 
France,  .  .  116,402 


Norway, 

.     114,246 

Mexico,  . 

Sweden, 

.       97,332 

Denmark, 

Switzerland, 

.       75,153 

Italy,       . 

All  Austria, 

.       74,534 

Belgium, 

Wales,           .V 

.       74,533 

West  Indies, 

China, 

.       63,042 

Russia,    . 

42,435 
30,107 
17,157 
12,553 
11,570 
4,644 


The  first  battle  of  the  revolution  was  fought  at  Lexington,  Massa 
chusetts,  April  19,  1775.  On  the  19th  October,  1781,  Lord 
Cornwallis  with  his  army  surrendered  to  General  Washington,  at 
Yorktown,  Virginia.  Provisional  Articles  of  Peace  were  signed 
November  30,  1782.  An  agreement  that  all  hostilities  should  cease 
was  signed  January  20,  1783.  On  the  19th  of  April,  1783,  exactly 
eight  years  after  the  battle  at  Lexington,  which  opened  the  war,  a 
proclamation  of  peace  was  issued  by  Washington. 

From  the  achievement  of  Independence  the  American  Republic  has 
been  an  attraction  to  immigrants,  particularly  from  Ireland  and 
Germany ;  and  from  these  Celtic  and  Teutonic  sources  the  Union  has 


derived  the  bulk  of  its  foreign,  the  basis  of  its  native  population. 
And  as  the  issue  of  foreign  parents  are  native  Americans,  and  the 
process  of  fusion  has  been  in  operation  since  Europe  peopled 
America's  shores,  the  American  race  is  a  Celtic- Teutonic,  not  an 
Anglo-Saxon  type  of  the  human  species.  It  was  the  Norman  graft 
that  made  Britain  great.  And  where  the  Normans  grafted  there  they 
grew. 

What  happened  to  Adam  and  his  posterity  may  be  left  to  histo 
rians,  prophets,  and  preachers  to  descant,  for  an  initial  in  Noah  and 
the  ark-load  which  he  landed  on  Ararat ;  since  this  brings  us  down  to 
a  period  relatively  modern,  and  gives  the  human  family  a  new  depart 
ure  from  Armenia,  not  far  from  Eden  and  all  in  Asia. 

The  Dominion  of  Canada,  organized  as  a  propaganda,  cannot  crown 
a  ruler,  install  a  dynasty,  nor  manufacture  an  aristocracy  by  patent- 
right;  for  exotic  shoots  from  royal  roots,  or  suckers  from  noble  stumps, 
do  not  sprout  after  transplant  to  North  America,  where  old  States 
sow  pioneers  and  new  States  grow  from  home  increase  and  European 
overflow. 

The  Union  is  the  product  not  of  birthright  but  of  honest  industry, 
Christian  toleration  and  educated  self-reliance.  The  people  reign 
and  the  people  rule;  and  incumbents  of  conspicuous  office,  not  con 
spicuous  for  merit,  may  flash  in  the  political  sky  like  a  rocket  in  the 
night  air,  but  are  sure  to  disappear  from  public  office,  public  consider 
ation,  and  public  sight.  True,  parasites  abound  in  political  life  as  in 
animal  and  vegetable  life ;  but  dishonesty  begets  opprobrium,  and  the 
unfaithful  public  servant  sinks  into  obscurity  and  is  heard  of  no  more, 
save  to  "point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale."  To  be  sure  money  will 
buy  praise,  but  the  promiscuous  flatterer  is  like  the  fly  which  leaves  a 
speck  of  dirt  where  it  finds  a  grain  of  sugar. 

The  robust  man  is  not  always  healthy  in  all  his  vital  organs,  but 
the  tendency  of  nature  is  to  health,  and  unless  the  wrong  medicine  is 
administered  he  soon  recovers. 

So  the  political  body  may  not  be  perfect  in  all  its  parts,  yet  it  may 
be  complete  in  most  of  its  functions,  and  only  need  repair  where  there 
is  discovered  imperfection.  The  duration  of  office  is  limited,  and  con 
stitutions  and  laws  are  open  to  amendment.  The  bullet  is  the 
unthinking  instrument  of  force,  used  against  the  subject  if  he  claim 
the  rights  which  it  is  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  exercise.  Man  can 
nowhere  be  free  but  in  a  republic.  And  if  the  subject  boast  of  the 
pure  blood  of  his  prince,  the  citizen  can  cite  the  purer  blood  of  the 
race-horse,  which  receives  a  physical  training  superior  to  a  prince 
in  paternal  antecedents  and  safeguards  against  indulgences  and  indis 
cretions. 


67 

As  a  large  percentage  of  the  patent  medicines  sold  in  the  shops  are 
quack  nostrums,  so  a  large  percentage  of  patent  title-bearers  are  spuri 
ous  compounds,  labelled  to  circulate  at  a  social  price  above  intrinsic 
value.  And  the  divorce  courts  of  Europe  attest  that  tempted  virtue 
is  sometimes  weak  to  resist  vice  as  well  where  rank  is  acquired  by 
inheritance  in  circles  professedly  exclusive  as  among  less  pretentious 
people. 

England  produced  Shal^speare,  America  produced  Washington. 
Neither  of  these  men  inherited  a  title,  yet  each  left  a  fame  that  time 
brightens,  as  royalty  dims,  in  the  shadows  of  "  comi/ig  events." 

A  living  body,  the  planetary  system,  the  universe  of  God,  are  all 
machines  in  motion,  operating  to  the  schedule  of  the  Supreme  intelli 
gence,  the  Creator  of  the  earth  and  of  Adam  in  Eden,  and  all  things 
between  and  beyond  the  outermost  orbs  in  space,  visible  through  the 
magnifying  aids  to  science  and  research. 

The  astronomer  contemplates  the  heavens  and  is  filled  with  adora 
tion  of  the  Maker  of  the  firmament.  The  statesman  with  his  finger 
revolves  a  ball  mapped  with  the  nations  of  the  world,  and,  contrast 
ing  the  imperfect  machinery  of  human  government  with  the  order  in 
nature,  applies  himself  to  the  improvement  and  aggrandizement  of 
his  country. 

The  nations  of  Europe,  though  the  issue  of  a  new  departure  out  of 
Noah's  ark  in  Armenia,  after  the  deluge,  are  nevertheless  a  spread- 
out  of  patches  cut  with  swords  and  held  together  with  treaty  tape ; 
and  in  this  patchwork  of  centuries  every  rent  makes  two  u  ragged 
edges,"  one  of  which  is  pieced  out,  the  other  cut  away,  as  when  Savoy 
and  Nice  were  scissored  from  Italy  and  fitted  to  France,  and  Alsace 
and  Lorraine  were  sworded  from  France  and  sewed  to  Germany. 

Or  later,  as  when  the  Berlin  Congress  in  1878  donated  to  Austria, 
for  reasons  not  founded  in  truth  nor  of  a  justifying  nature,  the 
Turkish  provinces  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  for  Austria  did  nothing 
whilst  Russia  and  Turkey  were  at  war,  but  chorus  with  Great  Britain 
in  bluster  and  preparation,  not  however,  as  the  sequel  shows,  to  fight 
Russia  and  risk  an  European  conflagration,  but  to  steal  from  Turkey 
in  its  extremity ;  because  it  was  clear  that  Russia  would  not  vacate 
Bessarabia,  Batoum  or  Kars.  having  vanquished  Turkey  in  war  ended 
bv  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  between  the  two  belligerents.  And 
therefore,  Great  Britain  arid  Austria  negotiated  and  threatened  in  the 
interest  of  Turkey,  against  Russia  and  the  San  Stefano  treaty,  till 
the  map  of  Turkey  was  rectified  by  the  Berlin  Congress,  which  por 
tioned  off  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  to  Austria,  and  Great  Britain 
obtained  Cyprus  Island  through  a  secret  treaty. 

Turkey's  volunteer  attorneys  divided  part  of  their  client's  assets 


68 

between  themselves,  and  then  conciliated  their  plundered  dupe  with 
the  excuse,  that  it  had  better  part  with  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  to 
Austria  and  Cyprus  Island  to  Great  Britain,  than  carry  out  with 
Russia  the  provisions  of  the  San  Stefano  treaty.  Arid  when  the 
Berlin  Congress  prescribed  for  Austria's  aggrandizement,  its  "man 
date"  was  equivalent  in  dishonesty  to  a  military  order  to  billet  troops 
in  a  bank  to  manipulate  its  affairs,  lest  thieves  might  break  into  its 
vaults  and  steal  its  deposits.  It  is  because  the  diplomacy  of  Europe 
is  operated  in  the  interest  of  dynasties,  sometimes  in  disregard  of  the 
populations  governed,  that  extreme  opinions  are  promulgated  through 
secret  societies,  and  imperial  rulers  live  in  political  twilight  and  intel 
lectual  unrest. 

In  horse-power  times  gone  by,  the  weight  of  a  four-footed  animal 
on  a  treadmill  which  turned  under  its  feet  propelled  a  boat  across  a 
ferry,  and  caused  light  machinery  to  move  in  a  mill ;  but  nowadays 
the  steam-engine  hauls  trains  of  cars  over  mountains,  propels  ships 
across  seas,  and  drives  looms  in  factories.  And  as  the  steam-engine 
is  a  motor  in  machinery,  so  is  the  ballot  a  motor  in  government.  The 
sceptre  is  no  longer  a  magic  wand;  and  the  one-man  power  in  a  crown 
is  falling  into  disuse  after  the  one-horse  power  on  the  treadmill ;  for 
this  is  a  practical  age,  and  a  wooden  figure-head  is  an  abomination  in 
the  sight  of  thinking  man,  who  associates  the  idea  with  a  vessel  in 
water,  where  a  figure-head  does  not  interfere  with  the  bowsprit  nor 
impair  the  discipline  of  the  crew  on  board. 

Institutions  influence  the  minds  of  men  as  climate  affects  crops  in 
the  ground.  There  must  be  an  even  start  or  there  can  be  no  fair  race. 
To  be  born  free  and  equal  in  the  law  is  a  stimulus  to  effort,  and  .hence 
in  a  republic  the  honest,  earnest  man  moves  on  even  in  the  front,  in 
curring  risks  and  enjoying  rewards. 

The  productions  of  an  arable  belt  of  land  outstretching  north  and 
south  across  twenty  degrees  of  latitude,  say  from  Galveston  in  Texas 
to  Pembina  in  Minnesota,  are  of  very  many  more  varieties  than  the 
productions  of  a  belt  due  east  and  west  across  twenty-five  degrees  of 
longitude,  say  from  Winnipeg  to  the  Pacific  waters,  in  the  Dominion 
of  Canada. 

The  better  side  of  Manitoba  is  its  south  side,  open  to  the  sun  and 
zephyr,  which  thaw  its  surface  to  its  isothermal  limit,  and  give  it  a 
season  for  agriculture.  Manitoba  will  be  forced  by  necessity  to  cul 
tivate  a  trade  southward,  because  the  staples  of  which  it  may  produce 
a  surplus,  over  home  consumption,  will  be  very  few ;  whereas  the 
States  south  of  Manitoba  grow  oats,  grasses,  rye,  barley,  potatoes 
and  wheat ;  and  also  corn,  flax,  hemp,  tobacco,  rice,  sugar  cane  and 
cotton ;  vegetables  and  fruits,  too,  are  in  boundless  profusion. 


69 

In  verity  the  capacity  of  the  Mississippi  basin  for  production  is 
beyond  estimate  by  ordinary  calculation  ;  for,  though  the  earth  is 
peopled  over  its  circumference,  one-third  part  of  its  inhabitants  dwell 
in  China  proper,  within  an  area  but  little  larger  than  the  Mississippi 
basin,  and  not  so  large  as  the  joint  area  of  the  Mississippi  basin  and 
the  thirteen  original  States ;  in  other  words,  one-third  of  the  whole 
human  family  dwell  in  less  space  than  that  portion  of  the  Union  which 
is  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains ! 

In  1871,  England,  within  its  area  of  50,922  square  miles  (Minne 
sota  is  larger  than  England  and  Scotland  together),  contained 
21,495,131  of  population.  And  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  com 
prising  England,  Wales,  Scotland,  Ireland,  Isle  of  Man  arid  Channel 
Islands,  altogether  122,518  square  miles  (the  area  of  Minnesota  and 
Iowa,  jointly,  is  138,576  miles),  in  1871  contained  a  population  of 
31,857,338.  These  sizes  are  suggestive,  because  in  1770,  one  hun 
dred  and  one  years  prior  to  the  census  of  1871,  England  and  Wales  con 
tained  a  joint  population  of  only  7,428,000.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  (1801),  the  population  of  "London  and  suburbs" 
was  864,845  ;  in  1870  the  .population  of  New  York  city  was  942,292, 
and,  including  its  suburbs,  about  1,750,000 ;  so  the  United  States,  in 
1870,  contained  a  larger  city  than  Europe  contained  in  1801,  not 
withstanding  the  antiquity  of  its  capital  cities  and  trade  centres. 

Philadelphia,  too,  is  destined,  from  natural  causes,  to  be  a  city  of 
very  large  population ;  it  is  on  a  deep  and  broad  tidal  river,  and  is 
encircled  by  garden  country  of  unequalled  fertility;  is  in  close  prox 
imity  to  mineral  regions  that  supply  cheap  fuel  and  command  the  sea 
board  market ;  is  a  focus  of  communications  to  the  sea,  the  lakes,  the 
cotton  States,  the  Mississippi  basin,  and  the  Pacific  coast ;  finally, 
Philadelphia  is  a  city  of  cheap  homes  and  teeming  markets,  and  its 
working  population,  skilled  in  an  infinity  of  arts,  prosecuted  in  estab 
lishments  of  all  sizes,  from  ground  plans  that  cover  acres  to  an  attic 
floor  a  few  feet  square,  have  opportunities  for  country  recreation  in 
its  parks ;  for  the  education  of  children  in  its  schools ;  and  for  the 
instruction  and  entertainment  of  everybody  in  its  churches,  libraries 
and  public  places. 

Philadelphia  contains  but  a  comparatively  small  percentage  of 
foreign-born,  is  intensely  American  in  its  political  sentiments,  and  if 
less  metropolitan  in  appearance  and  fashion  than  its  neighbor,  is  more 
American  in  its  proclivities  and  more  multifarious  in  its  manufac 
tures.  And  fortunate  is  it  for  the  whole  country  that  the  cities  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  the  States  of  New  York  and  Penn 
sylvania,  so  near  together  in  geography,  are  so  different  in  character 
istics  and  employments;  for  as  "familiarity  breeds  contempt,"  so 


70 

similarity  breeds  indifference,  because  "  variety  is  the  spice  of  life ;" 
and  so  when  New  York  and  Philadelphia  are  considered  together,  their 
differences  are  bases  for  intercourse  and  intertrade,  as  the  differences 
between  two  nations  furnish  groundwork  for  commercial  treaties ; 
since  two  nations  that  grow  the  same  staples,  manufacture  the  same 
things  and  deal  in  the  same  merchandise,  have  nothing  to  interchange, 
no  ground  for  compromise,  no  plea  for  reciprocation.  A  nation  that 
buys  outside  of  its  borders  must  sell  outside  of  its  borders,  else  trea 
sure  instead  of  flowing  inward  will  be  drained  outward ;  but  as  no 
nation  can  supply  all  its  own  wants,  every  nation  must  buy  in  foreign 
markets ;  and  these  necessities  are  the  true  bases  of  international 
intertrade.  Thus  the  United  States  is  a  buyer  of  coffee,  tea  and 
sugar,  and  a  seller  of  cotton,  breadstuffs,  oil,  and  provisions;  true, 
there  are  scores  of  other  articles  besides  these  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
foreign  trade  of  the  United  States,  but  the  articles  named  constitute 
the  principal  items  in  the  import  and  export  lists.  Of  the  manufac 
tures  of  iron,  cotton  and  wool  the  United  States  import  less  and  less 
from  year  to  year ;  and  herein  is  where  the  shoe  pinches  Great  Bri 
tain,  which  covets  the  American  market,  and  so  preaches  free  trade 
to  dissuade  America  from  following  in  British  footsteps  through  a 
period  of  protection,  till  its  manufactures  were  established  and  its 
labor  trained. 

The  native  American  and  the  foreign-born  citizen  both  know  and 
appreciate  the  condition  of  the  subject  in  Europe  too  well  to  permit 
the  lawyer-politician,  or  any  one  else  in  Congress,  to  vote  away  pro 
tection  to  American  labor,  not  so  much  for  the  benefit  of  the  British 
laborer  as  the  British  aristocrat,  whose  established  caste,  made  up  of 
dukes,  marquises,  earls,  viscounts,  barons,  own  the  land  and  enjoy 
the  luxuries  of  life. 

The  manufacturing  plant  now  in  operation  in  the  United  States  is 
of  so  large  capacity  that  the  competition  is  sufficiently  active  between 
the  home  manipulators  of  our  own  staples ;  so  free  trade  means  op 
pression  t^  the  American  laborer  and  loss  of  American  capital  invested 
in  machinery,  because  in  Great  Britain  labor  is  impotent  for  its  own 
protection  against  the  aristocracy  which  is  above  it,  as  a  weather-vane 
on  a  church  steeple  is  above  its  foundation-stone. 

The  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  in  its  general  account, 
which  has  a  total  of  $147,251,212  on  $20,545,883  charged  to  con 
struction  and  equipment,  twice  the  money-cost  of  road  built  and 
equipped,  has  this  item  : 

"Assets  acquired  under  decree  of  court,  $44,966,583." 

These  assets  doubtless  consist  mainly  of  the  par  of  shares  or  bonds 


71 


mostly  bonus,  and  not  convertible  into  money  at  any  price  wortby  of 
consideration.  Yet  the  item  has  "millions  in  it " — in  the  books  ! 

Great  Britain  undoubtedly  is  possessed  of  prodigious  wealth,  par 
ticularly  if  its  investments  at  home  and  abroad  be  counted  at  par ; 
but  Great  Britain  is  a  small  country,  whilst  its  investments  are  in  all 
parts  of  the  earth,  from  which  the  principal  of  money  loaned  can 
never  be  recalled,  for  certificates  of  loan  are  cut  out  and  off  by  fore 
closure,  sale  and  reorganization,  and  bankruptcy  is  a  sponge  that 
obliterates  book  accounts. 

Great  Britain,  too,  has  a  foreign  trade  which  diminishes  in  profit ; 
and  so  from  its  foreign  investments  and  its  foreign  trade  British  in 
come  is  reduced.  Thus  Great  Britain  is  menaced  with  loss  in  its 
capital  and  in  its  trade. 

The  exceptionally  favorable  condition  of  the  foreign  trade  of  the 
United  States  in  recent  years  will  appear  in  the  following  exhibit  of 
the  imports  and  exports  for  the  last  four  official  years,  compiled 
from  reports  of  the  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics : 


1875. 

1876 

1877 

1878. 

Domestic  Exports  —  Merchandise 
reduced  to  gold  values,    .     .     . 
Domestic  Specie               .... 

$499,284,100 
83,857,129 

$525,582,247 
50,038,691 

$589,670,224 
43,134,738 

$680,683,798 
27,054,985 

Total  Domestic  Exports,     .     .     . 

$583,141,229 

$575,620,938 

$632,804,962 

$707,738,783 

Foreign  Exports  —  Merchandise,  . 
"          "          Specie,    .     .     . 

$14,158,611 
8,275,013 

$14,802,424 
6,467,611 

$12,804,996 
13,027,499 

$14,200,402 
6,678,240 

Total  Foreign  Exports,  .... 

22,433,624 

21,270,035 

25,832,495 

20,878,642 

Agoreo'ate  Exports,   

$605,574,853 

$596,890,973 

$658,637,457 

$728,617,425 

Imports  —  Merchandise,  .... 

533,005,436 
20  900,717 

460,741,190 
15,936,681 

451,315,992 
40,774,414 

437,097,237 
29,821,313 

Total  Foreign  Imports,  .... 

SUMMARY. 
Exports  from  the  Uoaited  States, 
Imports  into  the  United  States,  . 

$553,906,153 

1875. 
$605,574,853 
553,906,153 

$476,677,871 

1876. 
$596,890,973 
476,677,871 

$492,090,406 

1877. 
$658,637,457 
492,090,406 

$466,918,550 

1878. 
$728,617,425 
466,918,550 

Excess  of  Exports  over  Imports, 

$51,668,700 

$120,213,102 

$166,547,051 

$261,698,875 

Here,  in  verity,  is  a  progress  to  be  proud  of,  for  no  other  nation 
can  approximate  these  relative  proportions  in  export  and  import  trade. 
The  summarized  result  given  demonstrates  conclusively  that  the 
American  Republic  exports  largely  more  than  it  imports ;  that  the 
Americans  sell  to  foreigners  much  more  than  they  buy  from  foreign 
ers  ;  and  that  the  Americans  are  a  creditor  people  in  account  current 
with  the  intertrading  nations  of  the  earth.  This,  truly,  is  the  acme 
of  commercial  superiority  and  independence. 


72 

The  American  Union  is  the  largest  producer  of  the  precious  metals, 
wherefore  gold  and  silver  must  be  added  to  its  breadstuff's,  cotton,  oil, 
tobacco,  provisions  and  manufactured  articles,  the  miscellany  being 
distinguished  as  well  for  its  variety  as  for  its  value. 

Since  the  rebellion  against  the  Union,  which  was  suppressed  in 
1865,  after  four  years  of  civil  war,  the  nation  of  the  United  States  has 
more  than  •  doubled  its  exports  of  domestic  merchandise  to  foreign 
countries;  and  since  1873,  when  inflation  collapsed  after  six  years  of 
rampant  speculation  caused  not  by  the  war  whereby  the  rebellion  was 
suppressed,  as  erroneously  alleged  by  quack  political  economists  and 
artfully  charged  by  charter-clad  banditti,  but  by  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  Company's  Credit  Mobilier  contract  of  1867  ;  Northern 
Pacific  and  Texas  Pacific,  and  scores  of  other  railway  swindles  on 
investors  of  small  savings ;  the  incorporation  of  roving  contract  and 
improvement  companies  by  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  particu 
larly  in  1869-70-71 ;  and  kindred  false  pretences  contrived  to  cheat 
the  people  with  counterfeit  tokens  in  the  similitude  of  negotiable 
bonds.  Never  was  history  more  cunningly  perverted  than  when  it  is 
made  to  charge  to  the  war  of  1861-65  the  lottery-policy  railway 
bond  and  bonus  railway  share  speculations  of  1867-73.  And  high 
waymen  and  brigands,  who  incur  personal  hazard  in  their  out-door 
depredations,  are  heroic  thieves  contrasted  with  an  equal  number  of 
official  sneaks  clad  in  charters  granted  for  public  objects,  but  per 
verted  in  practice  to  promote  private  ends  in  dishonest  ways. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  had  resources  in  custom 
duties,  taxes,  etc.,  to  pay  interest  on  its  indebtedness;  but  corporations, 
firms,  and  individuals  as  debtors  had  to  pay  interest  out  of  principal 
borrowed,  where  the  profits  earned  were  insufficient,  or  fail.  And  as 
money  borrowed  was  soon  expended  or  divided,  and  the  profits  were 
less  than  the  interest  payable,  disaster  was  the  inevitable  conclusion 
under  tjie  circumstances. 

The  outlays  charged  to  construction  and  collateral  purposes  by 
corporations  of  all  kinds,  managed  by  bonus  financiers  and  by  san 
guine  men,  and  by  firms  and  individuals  for  new  establishments 
devoted  to  the  industries  and  manufactures,  and  for  alterations  and 
additions  made  to  enlarge  capacity  and  facilitate  production,  during 
the  six  consecutive  years  froril  1867  to  1873,  amounted  to  a 
prodigious  aggregate  of  liabilities,  bearing  interest  at  a  rate  extra 
ordinary  in  some  cases  and  high  on  the  average ;  whereas  those  who 
bought  United  States  bonds  during  the  war  invested  their  own  money, 
and  consequently  did  not  incur  debt  in  the  transaction.  The  war 
absorbed  capital  in  United  States  bonds  for  investment,  and  to  its 
creditors  the  government  has  been  faithful  in  the  payment  of  interest 


73 

accrued ;  but  in  the  six  years  of  speculation  (commencing  two  years 
after  the  war  had  ended,  and  after  the  government  had  not  only 
ceased  to  borrow  but  had  decreased  the  national  debt  and  the  annual 
interest  payable  by  the  United  States),  many  more  millions  of  indebt 
edness  was  rashly  and  recklessly  incurred  than  the  total  interest- 
bearing  debt  of  the  United  States,  which,  at  its  maximum,  August 
31,  1865,  amounted  to  $2,381,530,294. 

This  is  a  large  sum,  it  is  true,  charged  against  the  United  States  ; 
nevertheless  it  is  not  near  so  large  as  the  charged  increase  in  the 
liabilities  of  the  railroad  companies  in  the  United  States,  from  the 
end  of  1867  to  the  end  of  1873,  as  witness  : 

1873.  1867.  Increase. 

Miles  of  Railroad 

reported  on,               66,237  30,000  36,237 

Capital  Stock,       $1,947,638,584  $756,223,000  $1,191,415,584 

Funded  Debt,          1,836,904,450  416,658,000  1,420,246,450 


Total  liabilities,     $3,784,543,034     $1,172,881,000     $2,611,662,034 

If  the  entire  railroad  mileage  in  the  United  States  had  been  reported 
on,  and  all  the  floating  indebtedness  included,  the  increase  in  the 
liabilities  of  the  railroad  companies  for  1873  over  1867  would  be 
about  $3,000,000,000  ! 

At  the  end  of  1873  there  were  in  operation  in  the  United  States, 
of  railroad,  70,857  miles.  Railroad  constructed  in  six  years  ending 
December  31,  1873,  in  the  United  States,  31,508  miles,  exceeding 
the  total  railroad  mileage  in  the  United  States  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
rebellion  in  1861.  Thus  there  were  more  miles  of  railroad  built  in 
the  United  States  in  the  six  years  subsequent  to  1867  than  in  the 
thirty-five  years  prior  to  1862  ! 

France  prospered  after  the  disastrous  war  of  1870—71,  otherwise  it 
could  not  have  so  promptly  paid  its  enormous  indemnity  to  Germany. 

Great  Britain  has  had  no  costly  war  for  a  long  time,  but  Great 
Britain  is  depressed  to  extremity  in  its  trade  and  industries,  notwith 
standing  it  has  enjoyed  a  long  peace. 

Eight  years  elapsed  between  the  end  of  civil  war  in  the  United 
States  and  the  financial  crisis  in  1873.  In  a  diagnosis  of  the  United 
States  the  war  which  ended  in  the  spring  of  1865  is  not  the  cause  of 
the  depression  since  the  summer  of  1873;  on  the  contrary,  the  col 
lapse  of  credit  in  1873  was  caused  by  speculation  and  expansion 
commenced  in  the  summer  of  1867,  prior  to  which  date  Tweed's 
Tammany  Ring,  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company's  Credit  Mobi- 
lier  contract  which  surpassed  Aladdin's  magic  lamp,  the  Southern 
Railway  Security  rover,  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  bond  bubble, 


74 

the  California  and  Texas  Construction  Company's  Texas  and  Pacific 
Railway  juggle,  and  kindred  inventions  of  bonus  financiers,  were  not 
in  existence. 

The  capital  of  a  nation  is  its  principal  in  excess  of  its  debts,  and  a 
nation  is  rich  when  its  income  from  investments  and  its  profits  from 
its  trade  jointly  exceed  its  interest  payments  and  all  outgoes  charge 
able  to  expenses.  Where  there  is  a  balance  to  the  credit  of  a  year, 
the  surplus  of  income  over  outgo  is  capital  accumulated.  But  where 
a  nation  expends  more  than  its  receipts,  it  diminishes  its  capital  or 
incurs  debt.  And  as  Great  Britain  in  recent  years  has  imported 
many  millions  more. in  money  value  than  it  has  exported,  and  has 
collected  a  diminished  sum  from  its  foreign  investments,  the  conclu 
sion  is  that  in  recent  years  Great  Britain  has  been  living  in  part  on 
its  principal  accumulated  in  prior  years ;  for  as  a  creditor  Great 
Britain  has  incurred  immense  losses  in  foreign  countries  and  corpora 
tions. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

IN  the  spread  of  commerce  nations  achieved  greatness  and  cities 
amassed  wealth,  which,  however,  neither  could  hold,  and  consequently, 
the  commercial  centre  of  the  world,  moved  from  place  to  place  around 
the  Mediterranean  shore,  and  thence  to  the  Netherlands,  at  last  was 
shifted  to  the  Thames,  and  London  was  developed  into  a  vast  city.  But 
London  cannot  go  on  growing  forever,  and  as  its  income,  commissions 
and  profits  are  now  greatly  reduced,  compared  with  years  gone  by, 
London  may  at  any  time  suffer  from  panic  arid  from  shrinkage  in  value 
of  real  estate.  And  as  the  exodus  of  skilled  workmen  from  Great 
Britain  is  certain  to  continue,  London  will  ere  long  feel  arid  show  the 
effect  of  decadence  in  principal  invested  and  income  collectable.  The 
volume  of  business  may  be  large,  the  measure  of  profit  may  be  small ; 
machinery  superseded,  property  depreciated,  markets  divided,  com 
petition  aggressive ;  these  are  the  tendencies  of  the  times  in  Great 
Britain,  and  these  are  the  considerations  that  determine  intelligent 
Britons  to  seek  the  United  States,  where,  if  the  shops  are  full  at 
present,  there  are  cheap  lands  open  to  settlement.  Interesting, 
instructive  and  consolatory  is  the  migration  to  the  agricultural  lands 
west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  already  penetrated  with  railways  and 
provided  with  transportation. 

The  Eastern  States  are  all  importers  of  agricultural  products  from 
the  West ;  and,  meanwhile,  as  the  East  grows  in  population,  consump 
tion  will  increase;  and  so  the  West,  itself  a  large  consumer  of  its  own 


75 

products,  has  a  customer  in  the  East,  and  beyond  the  Eastern  States 
is  Europe.  For  surplus  populations  accumulated  in  particular  branches 
of  industry,  as  labor  is  divided  at  present  time,  there  is  no  such  cor 
rector  and  regulator  as  agriculture.  In  a  short  time,  therefore,  with 
proper  duties  on  the  products  of  foreign  labor  at  starvation  prices, 
the  internal  affairs  of  the  United  States  will  adjust  themselves  to  a 
new  distribution  of  domestic  employment,  and  ;'  all  things  will  work 
together  for  the  common  good,"  like  trains  on  a  railroad,  to  a  new 
time-table. 

Chicago,  a  marvel  of  rapid  growth,  will  continue  to  develop  and  in 
crease  in  population,  in  manufactures  and  in  trade;  St.  Louis  likewise 
is  sure  of  long  continued  commercial  expansion  and  industrial  accumu 
lation  ;  New  Orleans  will  be  the  entrepot  of  prodigious  totals  of  cosmo 
politan  commerce  ;  and  St.  Paul  will  be  conspicuous  and  important. 

Like  the  Yang-tse-kiang,  in  China,  the  Mississippi  River  will  have 
on  its  banks  great  centres  of  interior  trade;  and  the  Mississippi  States', 
which  are  like  unto  nations  in  size  and  resources,  will  add  millions  on 
millions  to  prosperous  population,  where  no  foreign  enemy  can  invade, 
where  no  domestic  traitor  can  distract,  and  where  political  union  is 
political  life  everlasting.  There  will  be  more  millions  of  inhabitants 
in  the  Mississippi  basin  than  any  nation  of  the  earth  now  contains, 
not  between  the  Indus  River  and  the  Yellow  Sea. 

Among  genuine  political  economists,  the  housewife,  who,  with  a 
few  dollars  a  week,  received  out  of  her  husband's  earnings,  keeps  her 
household  together,  everything  neat  and  tidy  in  appearance,  and  sends 
her  children  to  school  week-day  and  Sunday,  is  supreme  over  specu 
lators  in  theories,  inflationists  who  collapse  credit,  and  jugglers  who 
abuse  charters. 

If  Stephen  Girard  and  the  founder  of  the  Astors  could  take  a 
"bird's-eye"  view  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  what  estimate 
would  they  put  on  the  bonus  element  in  railway  finance  ? 

The  oak  develops  from  an  acorn  through  a  century  of  time,  whereas, 
after  a  shower,  a  mushroom  matures  in  a  night:  the  charter-clad  jug 
gler  can  chloroform  his  conscience  and  magnetize  his  finger  nerves ; 
but,  though  guano  will  quicken  the  ground,  it  will  not  serve  for  sun 
shine  to  ripen  grain  fit  for  harvest;  and  however  fiction  may  entertain 
its  readers,  it  is  base  and  dishonest  to  substitute  it  for  truth  in  book 
accounts,  official  reports,  or  anywhere  else. 

A  province  in  America  is  not  a  political  body  in  embryo,  with  a 
head  crowned  in  prospective.  The  royal  toy  brought  disaster  to  its 
two  temporary  wearers  south  of  Texas ;  and  in  the  history  which 
repeated  itself  in  Mexico  is  a  lesson  not  to  be  left  out  of  the  calcu 
lations  of  any  royal  sprig  or  sprout  ambitious  to  wear  a  crown  and 


76 

found  a  dynasty  in  North  America;  for  the  new  world  is  insulated 
from  the  old  by  three  thousand  miles  of  Atlantic  Ocean,  which  is  a 
ferry  for  immigration  and  intertrade,  and  likewise  a  barrier  to  mar 
plots  with  political  plans  and  enemies  with  deadly  weapons.  The 
immigrant  and  tourist  are  welcomed  over  its  waves,  and  for  the  pre 
meditated  destroyer  of  liberty  there  are  greedy  monsters  in  its  depths. 

As  the  branches  of  a  tree  converge  in  its  trunk,  so  the  branches  of 
the  Caucasian  race,  from  the  continent  and  islands  of  Europe,  come 
together  in  wedlock  in  the  American  Union,  where  those  who  followed 
since  Columbus  discovered  have  peopled  a  new  country  and  estab 
lished  a  new  power  between  two  seas,  with  a  dozen  doors  open  to 
Europe  for  immigration  and  exportation,  and  a  "golden  gate"  open 
to  Asia  for  intertrade  in  commodities  of  commerce.  And  if  Great 
Britain,  as  a  nation  in  Europe,  would  be  entente  cordiale  with  the 
United  States,  it  only  need  first  and  primarily  to  leave  the  Dominion 
of  Canada  to  the  option  of  its  indwellers,  each  province  to  determine 
its  own  future  transition  to  a  State  of  the  Union. 

Whilst  Great  Britain  is  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  in  provinces 
across  the  American  main  and  islands  on  its  coasts,  the  United  States 
must  construe  its  asseverations  of  distinguished  consideration,  and  all 
that,  with  a  mental  reservation,  arid  not  cease  to  remember  that  the 
English  dictionary  is  prolific  of  words  which  supply  diplomacy  with  a 
vocabulary,  and  which,  in  the  statutes,  are  made  to  mean  what  the 
judge  on  the  bench  says  they  express,  in  his  opinion. 

Towards  the  United  States,  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  has  never 
shown  equivocal  friendship,  nor  been  guilty  of  collusion  with  an  enemy 
in  time  of  war,  civil  or  foreign.  And,  as  a  logical  sequence,  behold 
with  what  reciprocity  arid  cordiality  the  United  States  and  Russia 
clasp  and  shake  hands  across  Behring  Strait,  from  the  shores  of 
Kamtschatka  and  Alaska ! 

In  the  suppression  of  the  mutiny  and  attempted  revolution  in  India 
in  1857,  a  §  movement  inspired  by  love  of  country,  Great  Britain 
transported  the  King  of  Delhi  to  where  he  soon  died,  and  killed  his 
son  and  grandson,  and  so  extinguished  the  royal  line  of  legitimate 
successors  of  the  great  Moguls;  for  the  King  of  Delhi  was'the  head 
of  the  Mogul  empire  and  a  potentate  of  ancient  lineage  and  illustrious 
rank* among  Hindoos  and  Mussulmans.  But  in  British  eyes  it  was  a 
crime  to  be  a  native  legitimist  in  Hindostan  ;  and  because  the  King 
of  Delhi  was  the  descendant  of  the  Mogul  emperors  who  had  ruled 
over  a  vast  empire  before  India  was  distracted  into  petty  sovereignties, 
therefore  the  King  of  Delhi  was  considered  dangerous  to  British 
supremacy  in  India,  and  so  the  King  of  Delhi  was  doomed  to  trans 
portation  and  inevitable  death,  and  his  son  and  grandson  were  deprived 


77 

of  life  in  opposition  to  a  divine  commandment  and  in  mockery  of 
manhood  justice ;  and  this  satanic  cruelty  was  practiced  so  that  there 
should  be  no  legal  representative  alive  in  Hindostan  to  reign  over  the 
Mogul  empire  revived,  in  case  the  natives  of  India  should  unite  in 
an  effort  to  expel  their  foreign  oppressors  and  reestablish  home  rule. 
In  other  words,  the  royal  line  of  Delhi  was  exterminated  to  prevent 
the  restoration  of  a  time-honored  Mogul  regime  in  India,  adverse  to 
British  rule.  And  Rajahs,  Khans,  and  other  native  dignitaries  were 
hanged  in  1857,  for  political  reasons,  by  the  British  in  India,  where 
the  u  king  of  beasts  "  is  considerate  and  merciful  to  other  animals  of 
inferior  capabilities  for  defence,  contrasted  with  the  satraps  of  the 
nation  that  carries  the  lion  on  its  coat  of  arms,  and  makes  "  British 
interests"  a  justification  of  conquest  for  trade  and  a  plea  for  acquisi 
tion  of  territory  for  colonial  empire  around  the  globe ;  especially  in 
places  where  subjugation  is  practicable  through  diplomacy  and  subsidy, 
where  spoliation  is  profitable,  and  uncivilized  population  is  defenceless 
against  treaty  translations  and  modern  guns. 

In  antiquity  of  civilization  Hindostan  long  antedates  Great  Britain  ; 
and  the  old  plea  of  the  Christianity  of  Great  Britain  is  no  longer 
available,  since  its  intrigue  against  the  San  Stefano  treaty  to  prolong 
the  stay  of  the  Turk  in  Europe,  and  its  acceptance  of  Cyprus  Island 
as  subsidy  for  a  defensive  alliance  with  the  Mahometan  power  that 
centuries  ago  crossed  over  from  Asia  to  Europe  and  waged  war  against 
the  Christian  nations  to  exterminate  the  Christian  religion,  Except 
for  the  interference  of  Great  Britain,  the  Turk  would  have  been 
scourged  out  of  Europe,  for  Austria,  without  British  cooperation, 
was  impotent  to  act  against  Russia.  And  so  Austria  and  Great 
Britain,  both  jealous  of  Russia,  and  both  greedy  for  spoils,  conspired 
against  the  Christians  in  European  Turkey,  for  their  own  mutual 
aggrandizement.  And  now,  with  the  San  Stefano  treaty  between 
Russia  and  Turkey,  the  Berlin  Congress  of  the  seven  powers,  and  the 
defensive  alliance  between  Great  Britain  and  Turkey,  known  to  man 
kind  of  all  religions,  the  hypocrisy  and  selfishness  of  Great  Britain 
are  of  record  in  evidence  that  will  endure  in  history  to  confront  pro 
fessions  contrary  to  acts.  Review  Lord  Beaconsfield,  the  British 
hero  in  these  diplomatic  exploits,  and  wherein  is  there  proof  of 
sincerity,  truthfulness,  or  statesmanship,  that  will  stand  the  test  of 
honest  criticism,  in  his  sharp  practice,  which  must  not  be  confounded 
with  policy  farsighted? 

Considered  as  a  finality  for  Europe,  in  the  interests  of  peace,  the 
Berlin  Congress  was  a  failure,  because  it  settled  only  a  few  of  the 
minor  and  adjourned  most  of  the  main  issues  of  the  questions  it  was 
called  together  to  discuss,  arbitrate  and  solve,  for  a  time  to  be  measured 


78 

not  by  days  but  by  years.  But  before  the  ambassadors  had  been 
absent  a  month  from  .Berlin,  behold  Austria  meeting  with  resistance, 
and  made  to  pay  with  the  blood  of  its  soldiery  for  its  trespass  in 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 

The  Berlin  Congress  partitioned  two  provinces  of  Turkey  to  Austria, 
a  non-combatant  in  the  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey ;  but  when 
Austria  marched  into  the  territory  allotted  to  it  as  its  prize  for  co 
operation  with  Great  Britain,  first  against  Russia  in  the  Bulgaria  of 
the  San  Stefano  treaty,  and  last  against  Turkey  in  Bosnia  and  Her 
zegovina,  then  the  people  portioned  off  made  defensive  war  against 
invasion,  and  Austrian  prestige  lost  the  shine  put  on  it  at  Berlin 
with  a  British  brush.  Austria  can  only  rule  where  she  can  conquer. 
For  preserving  it  from  dismemberment  in  1849,  Austria  in  1878 
repaid  Russia  with  ingratitude.  But  Servia  is  an  independent  nation, 
and  Hungary  may  yet  regain  its  independence  of  Austria.  There 
remains  much  for  diplomacy  and  the  sword  to  do  in  the  basin  of  the 
Danube  River  and  south  of  the  Balkan  Mountains. 

Since  Russia  obtained  a  frontier  on  the  Black  Sea  at  the  Knieper 
in  1774,  that  power,  previously  bounded  by  the  Caspian  and  the 
Baltic,  has  made  one  acquisition  after  another  along  the  Black  Sea 
shores  in  Europe  and  Asia,  till  now  its  entire  northern  and  eastern 
coasts  and  parts  of  its  western  and  southern  coasts  belong  to  Russia, 
which  has  regained  Bessarabia  and  added  Batoum  to  its  harbors  and 
Kars  to  its  strongholds.  Nor  can  nor  will  Russia  cease  to  acquire  ter 
ritory  or  influence  on  the  Black  Sea,  till  it  shall  have  acquired  ground 
essential  for  the  protection  of  its  commerce  in  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles  to  the  JEgean  Sea  via  Constanti 
nople,  as  the  United  States  enjoy  between  the  Mississippi  River 
system  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  via  New  Orleans.  True,  wars  have 
procrastinated  Russia's  progress,  but  meanwhile  Russia  has  ^expanded 
and  developed  into  a  colossal  power  that  will  not  be  content  nor  satis 
fied  until  the  straits  between  Europe  and  Asia,  which  the  Turks  have 
too  long  straddled,  are  open  to  its  ships,  and  it  can  protect  its  com 
merce  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 

It  would  not  be  tolerated  in  Denmark  to  blockade, or  embargo  the 
sound  or  belt  to  the  Baltic ;  nor  in  Great  Britain  to  blockade  or  em 
bargo  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar  nor  the  English  Channel.  And  a 
frontage  on  the  straits  between  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Mediterranean 
is  as  essential  to  Russia  as  Florida  to  the  United  States,  Dover  to 
England,  Calais  to  France. 

England  covets  Egypt  and  the  Euphrates  valley,  because  they 
contain  routes  to  India  from  the  Mediterranean,  and  acquired  Cyprus 
Island  because  of  its  strategic  significance  as  a  naval  station,  with 


79 

reference  to  the  Suez  Canal  and  Euphrates  railway  routes  to  India  ; 
and  at  the  same  time  and  with  the  same  breath  cants  about  Russian 
aggression,  and  strives  to  keep  that  power  out  of  Constantinople. 
The  words  "British  interests"  would  serve  the  devil  for  a  short 
motto  in  pandemonium,  as  it  does  for  politicians  in  London,  who  barter 
away  the  Christian  Church  in  Turkey  to  save  the  British  dollar  in 
India  and  elsewhere.  Great  is  the  dollar  in  Britain. 

For  whatever  the  United  States  may  deem  necessary  of  enactment 
and  execution  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  dynastic  government  in 
Canada,  it  has  the  supreme  and  all-sufficient  law  of  self-preservation, 
additional  to  precedents  in  the  practice  of  Great  Britain  where  it 
considered  its  interests  prospectively  involved.  And  if  British  fleets 
in  past  times  had  terrors  to  nations  with  small  navies  and  imperfect 
defences,  in  present  time  the  British  iron- clad  is  impotent  to  bulldoze 
the  torpedo,  which  is  as  destructive  to  an  iron-clad  ship  of  war  as  to 
a  wooden  target.  In  the  account  between  the  Russian  torpedo  and 
the  Turkish  iron-clad  the  credit  balance  is  largely  in  favor  of  the  tor 
pedo.  The  role  of  the  iron-clad  is  rather  to  menace  with  demonstra 
tions  than  attack  with  projectiles ;  for  the  torpedo  charged  to  explode 
is  more  to  be  dreaded  than  a  floating  battery  in  an  iron-clad  ship, 
which  is  vulnerable  in  the  same  proportion  that  it  was  claimed  to  be 
invulnerable.  A  weather  vane  is  put  up  to  point  to  the  wind  and 
turn  when  the  wind  changes ;  and  public  opinion  weighs  with  weights 
in  a  true  balance  and  turns  on  a  pivot  in  gravity's  centre.  Hence, 
on  examination  it  is  easy  to  ascertain  which  way  the  wind  blows,  and 
in  what  direction  public  opinion  tends.  Concealment  of  the  truth  is 
impossible  where  discussion  winnows  assertions  from  facts.  That  the 
iron-clad  has  disappointed  expectation  in  Europe  is  a  truth  patent  to 
everybody  arid  a  special  grief  to  Englishmen,  because  there  can  be  no 
naval  supremacy  whilst  the  torpedo,  if  not  paramount  in  the  waters,  is 
a  terror  to  iron-clads.  And  to  show  how  the  British  navy  chicaned 
at  Copenhagen  in  1801,  at  Algiers  in  1816,  and  at  Acre  in  1840,  the 
following  extract  is  copied  from  page  271  of  Col.  J.  P.  Chesney's 
"  Russo-Turkish  campaigns  of  1828  and  1829,"  published  in  1854, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  war  against  Russia  by  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Sardinia,  as  allies  of  Turkey,  four  powers  against  one ;  a  war  in 
which  the  British,  after  more  than  one  trial,  did  not  take  the  Redan, 
though  the  French  did  take  the  Malakhoff;  whereupon  the  Russians 
retired  to  the  north  forts  of  Sebastopol  and  were  not  driven  thence 
by  the  besieging  allies. 

Col.  Chxesney,  R.  A.,  D.  C.  L.,  F.  R.  S.,  says : 

"It  is  true  that  three  remarkable  instances  have  occurred  in  modern 
times,  which  may  seem  to  favor  the  superiority  of  ships  over  stone 


80 

walls.  These  are  Copenhagen,  Algiers  and  Acre.  In  the  first  case, 
it  is  understood  that  Nelson  was  only  relieved  from  a  critical  situation 
by  sending  a  letter  on  shore,  which  caused  the  batteries  of  Copenhagen 
to  cease  firing  against  the  fleet. 

"  In  the  second  instance,  the  attack  on  Algiers  was  made  during 
a  state  of  peace.  We  know  that  after  our  fleet  had  entered  the  har 
bor,  not  in  line  of  battle,  but  almost  ship  by  ship,  and,  consequently, 
greatly  exposed  to  the  garrison,  the  Queen  Charlotte,  by  the  advice 
of  an  engineer  officer,  Sir  William  Ried,  K.  C.  B.,  now  the  distin 
guished  Governor  of  Malta,  was  placed  with  her  broadside  on  the 
flank  of  the  grand  or  mole  battery.  The  rest  of  the  fleet  had  also 
taken  up  advantageous  positions  without  a  shot  being  fired  by  the 
garrison,  until  Lord  Exmouth  waved  his  hat  as  the  signal  for  the 
fleet  to  open  its  fire  simultaneously. 

"  In  the  third  case,  that  of  Acre,  the  fleet  was  also  allowed  to  take 
up  positions  which  had  been  previously  arranged,  without  any  oppo 
sition.  Buoys  had  even  been  placed  beforehand,  and  what  had  been 
a  state  of  peace  up  to  that  moment  was  only  broken  by  the  opening 
of  a  terrific  fire  of  shells  and  shot,  when  everything  was  ready; — at 
least  on  our  side." 

British  duplicity,  however,  practiced  in  its  naval  tactics  at  Copen 
hagen,  Algiers  and  Acre,  as  described  by  a  competent  British  military 
authority,  a  colonel  in  the  Royal  Artillery,  did  not  avail  at  Sebas- 
topol,  the  siege  of  which  was  commenced  by  a  joint  attack  of  the 
allied  fleets  and  forces,  October  17,  1854,  which  was  unsuccessful ; 
nor  was  the  Malakhoff  taken  by  the  French  till  September  8,  1855, 
when  the  allies  entered  that  portion  of  Sebastopol  left  in  ruins  by 
the  retiring  Russians.  Neither  did  the  Baltic  fleet,  under  Sir  C. 
Napier,  venture  to  attack  Cronstadt,  which  defends  St.  Petersburg, 
in  the  Russo-Turkish-French-British-Sardinian  war  of  1853—1856, 
a  war  which  was  waged  to  wrest  from  Russia  the  Crimea  and  other 
ground,  but  which  ended  leaving  Russia  intact,  save  that  its  Bessara- 
bian  corner  was  cut  off,  till  it  was  retroceded  by  the  San  Stefano 
treaty,  a  retrocession  which  the  Congress  of  Berlin  confirmed.  The 
Crimean  war  added  no  prestige  to  Russia's  allied  enemies.  To  Great 
Britain  it  was  a  loss  of  prestige.  The  war  of  1877-1878,  ended  by 
the  treaty  of  San  Stefano,  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  conferred  a 
lustre  on  Russia's  arms  which  the  Congress  of  Berlin  did  not  dim  nor 
eclipse  with  its  own  performances. 


81 


CHAPTER   IX. 

ON  the  29th  July,  1878,  it  was  officially  announced,  in  London, 
that  the  Marquis  of  Lome,  son-in-law  of  Queen  Victoria,  had  been 
appointed  Governor-General  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  successor  to 
Lord  Dufferin.  The  Marquis  of  Lome,  husband  of  the  Princess  Louise, 
is  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll.  He  was  born  August  6, 1845, 
and  was  married  March  21,  1871.  The  Princess  Louise,  the  sixth  of 
the  nine  children  of  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince  Albert,  was  born 
March  18,  1848.  The  Marquis  of  Lome,  whose  mission  it  is  to  vivi 
sect  the  Dominion  of  Canada  with  royal  blood,  and  attempt  the  task 
of  founding  a  dynasty  in  the  shadow  of  the  tree  of  liberty,  in  soil 
near  its  roots,  which  are  sound  like  its  branches,  is  a  member  of  Par 
liament  from  the  county  of  Argyll,  Scotland.  The  county  of  Argyll 
is  positively  liberal  in  its  politics,  and  the  Marquis  of  Lome,  who 
comes  to  America  probably  to  propagate  royalty  in  disguise,  perchance 
in  expectation  of  a  propitious  season  to  declare  a  kingdom,  professed 
liberal  sentiments  when  he  was  elected  to  Parliament ;  but  after  his 
marriage  to  a  daughter  of  the  Queen,  whereby  the  subject  was  flattered 
with  a  condescension  singular  in  the  sovereign,  he  acted  with  the 
Tories  as  unconditionally  as  if  he  had  never  given  a  pledge  to  his 
Liberal  constituency  in  Argyll.  The  Marquis,  therefore,  is  a  British 
diplomatist,  who,  when  he  says  one  thing,  perhaps  means  another. 
But,  in  America,  the  art  of  government  is  open  to  universal  study ; 
and  the  intelligent  elector  who  knows  how  to  wield  the  ballot  and  to 
strike  with  it,  contemplates  a  royalist  with  as  little  awe  as  a  learned 
physician  looks  on  the  medicine  man  of  an  Indian  tribe.  In  repub 
lican  eyes  king-craft  is  a  transparent  sham,  and  a  royal  court  is  but 
a  theatre  with  a  stage  and  a  stock  company.  For  star  actors  in  polit 
ical  parts  do  we  not  search  among  distinguished  ministers  who  served 
crowned  heads  ?  Is  not  Shakspeare  immortal  in  the  realm  of  mind 
beyond  the  royal  characters  depicted  in  his  plays  ?  Does  not  revolu 
tion  uproot  a  dynasty  as  a  tornado  uproots  a  tree  ?  And  where  the 
tree  stood  before  the  storm  destroyed  it,  does  not  the  ploughman  make 
a  furrow  and  plant  seed  to  utilize  the  ground,  and  so  turn  a  visitation 
in  wind  to  advantage  in  agriculture?  Is  not  a  fire  in  a  city  a  bless 
ing  in  flame  when  a  site  is  cleared  for  needed  improvements  not 
otherwise  attainable,  because  of  opposition  against  tearing  down  old 
structures,  superseded  and  depreciated?  Forces  in  nature  are  not 
diminished  because  now  and  then  a  storm  makes  a  commotion  in  the 
air,  and  there  is  destruction  on  land  and  sea.  After  a  thunder-storm 
the  atmosphere  is  more  exhilarating ;  and  after  a  plot  against  nation- 
6 


82 

ality  and  free  government  is  exploded,  the  political  sky  of  a  progress 
ive  people  resumes  its  normal  azure  hue.  The  sky  of  Mexico  was 
twice  overcast  with  cloud,  but  it  is  a  third  time  cerulean,  if  not  serene. 
The  Republic  in  France  was  twice  supplanted,  but  now  France  is  a 
Republic  for  the  third  time,  watchful  and  determined  not  to  be  again 
betrayed  in  the  interest  of  legitimacy,  dynasty  or  empire,  three  forms 
of  personal  government  antagonistic  to  republicanism,  because  birth 
right  succession  to  a  sceptre  is  contrary  to  the  right  of  the  governed 
to  choose  the  chief  of  the  government. 

The  masses,  in  America,  understand  their  interests,  political,  educa 
tional,  religious  and  pecuniary,  too  well,  and  comprehend  the  situation 
and  its  surroundings  too  clearly,  to  tolerate  a  kingdom  or  an  empire 
in  North  America,  or  permit  a  plotting  power  in  Europe  to  intrigue 
against  the  annexation  of  free  States  to  the  American  Union ;  a  cen 
tury  plant,  which,  on  its  hundredth  anniversary,  in  1876,  blossomed  in 
Fairmount  Park,  Philadelphia,  with  thirty-eight  States,  and  bore  eleven 
territorial  buds  on  its  branches.  Royalty  is  a  vine  which  exhales  a 
poison,  deadly  where  it  causes  sleep,  shelters  parasites  where  it  creeps 
and  covers,  and  kills  the  tree  it  girdles  and  overgrows,  as  the  stumps 
of  punk  fungus,  only  fit  for  tinder,  in  the  genealogical  park  testify. 
In  truth,  it  was  an  error  to  import  the  English  sparrow  into  the 
United  States,  where  it  is  out  of  place  among  singing  birds,  that 
make  the  country  and  the  town  vocal  with  native  songs.  The  British 
tramp,  with  wings,  has  a  voracity  in  disproportion  to  its  size.  And 
among  more  musical  American  birds  in  prettier  plumage,  the  sparrow 
is  the  equivalent  of  the  communist  in  the  French  republic,  and  is  an 
importation  to  the  United  States  "  not  fit  to  be  made." 

American  citizens  who  study  the  political  weather  and  consult  prob 
abilities  in  British  politics,  will  not  fraternize  with  title  bearers  im 
ported  into  Canada  to  act  automatic  parts  in  a  game  of  dynastic  chess 
played  in  London  against  free  institutions  in  America.  Let  exhibi 
tions  of  loyalty  to  royalty  come  from  the  St.  George  societies,  whose 
members  are  imbued  with  British  ideas  in  fast  colors,  visible  through 
the  ink  of  a  naturalization  certificate ! 

The  worthy  Princess  Louise,  now  the  Marchioness  of  Lome,  is  not 
more  worthy  than  Nellie  Grant,  now  Mrs.  Sartoris.  And  did  not 
Harriet  Lane,  now  Mrs.  Johnson,  do  the  honors  of  the  White  House, 
in  Washington,  with  as  much  grace  and  dignity  as  any  princess  in  her 
appropriate  part  in  Windsor  Castle  ?  The  law  of  quality  which  per 
vades  American  oysters  and  'eggs,  and  causes  their  classification  into 
"good"  and  "bad,"  also  pervades  the  titled  and  untitled  ranks  in 
Europe,  where  those  who  pass  for  "commons"  show  as  large  a  per 
centage  of  "good"  as  the  so-called  nobility. 


83 

Is  a  princess  lovelier  than  another  lady  in  a  bathing-suit,  in  the 
breakers  at  Cape  May  and  Rockaway  ?  And  as  from  the  time  of 
Eve's  first  pregnancy  nature  has  used  but  one  common  mould  for  the 
reproduction  of  the  human  species,  it  follows  that  the  process  of  mater 
nity  is  the  same  everywhere,  and  that  the  assumptions  of  superiority 
in  birth — and  a  birth  is  the  delivery  of  a  life  to  the  world  by  a 
matrix  of  single  standard  established  by  nature  in  universal  law — 
are  unfounded  in  physiology  and  false  in  everything ;  also,  that  dis 
tinctions  and  discriminations  made  to  the  advantage  of  titled  and  the 
disadvantage  of  untitled  persons  are  abuses  in  human  government 
which  will  not  be  permitted  in  North  America,  where  there  is  no  road 
open  for  royalty  to  travel  in  safet}^  to  a  throne;  and  where,  moreover, 
two  royal  roads  commenced  in  Mexico  both  led  to  places  of  execution. 

"  The  Bourbons  learn  nothing  and  forget  nothing."  Are  all 
dynastic  families  like  the  Bourbons  ?  And  is  not  a  minister  of  state 
who  cannot  discern  that  dynastic  government  is  destined  to  perish 
like  other  impostures  of  the  past  based 'on  superstition,  which  is 
everywhere  disappearing  from  political  horizons,  unfit  for  office  in 
these  latter  advanced  days  ?  Animal  nature,  nowhere  perfect,  may  be 
found  as  near  perfection  where  all  are  citizens  as  where  titles  and 
honors  are  hereditary  and  succession  is  independent  of  merit.  No, 
no ;  human  nature  is  not  compounded  like  bronze  preparatory  to 
casting  a  statue  in  a  mould,  nor  like  metal  in  a  bell,  impregnated 
with  silver  to  soften  its  sound.  Greater  monsters  or  worse  men 
never  lived  on  the  earth  than  some  of  the  occupants  of  the  throne  of 
England.  And  criminal  calendars  show  that  a  prince  can  be  as 
wicked  as  a  peasant.  Away  then  with  the  arrogance  that  hereditary 
office  exalts  human  nature,  which,  where  it  attains  to  highest  exalta 
tion  in  public  and  private  life,  is  always  founded  on  manhood  and 
womanhood,  worth  and  virtue.  The  citizen  reserves  his  veneration 
and  his  adoration  for  the  one  universal  God,  and  makes  allotment  of 
his  respect  and  admiration  according  to  his  understanding,  experience 
and  observation,  with  mental  impartiality  and  without  preference, 
prejudice,  or  bias. 

The  British  political  system,  which  perpetuates  power  in  a  priv 
ileged  class,  and  tolerates  the  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entail,  pos 
itive  drawbacks  to  reform,  has  made  London  a  mammoth  and  masto 
don  city,  has  made  the  dozen  millionaires  and  the  million  companions 
of  poverty  "acquainted  with  grief." 

The  spectacle  of  honor  in  plumes  and  ribbons  and  decorations  on 
breasts  and  shoulders  ennobled  by  partial  law,  not  by  impartial  jus 
tice  and  honest  effort,  does  not  fill  the  requirements  of  manhood  nor 
satisfy  the  educated  mind,  quick  to  discern  and  able  to  weigh,  meas 
ure  and  appreciate.  The  smell  of  food  flavored  for  the  palace  does 


84 

not  appease  the  hunger  of  the  multitude  in  hovels,  for  the  stomach  is 
sensitive  and  the  body  must  have  nourishment.  To  provide  things 
to  eat  and  to  wear  is  a  common  duty,  for  food  and  clothing  are  com 
mon  necessaries ;  and  hence  opportunities  for  sustentation  and  better 
ment  ought  to  be  open  to  everybody. 

Wide,  indeed,  is  the  difference  between  a  citizen  and  a  subject,  a 
republic  in  the  hands  of  republican  citizens  and  a  monarchy  admin 
istered  by  a  dynasty,  with  an  army  to  enforce  its  decrees ;  particu 
larly  to  the  masses  who  work  with  brain  and  muscle,  operate  with 
mind  on  matter,  and  among  whom  are  a  considerable  proportion  who 
have  ideas  to  embody  in  practical  use  and  aspirations  to  realize,  through 
rewards  in  sight  of  manly  ambition  and  within  reach  of  honest  effort. 

The  annual  grants  received  by  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  and  the  members  of  her  family  amount  to  a  very  large  sum, 
about  three  million  dollars,  for  the  royal  household  of  Great  Britain 
is  a  numerous  family,  which  derives  its  main  consideration  not  from 
services  rendered  to  the  kingdom  since  the  House  of  Hanover  ob 
tained  the  succession  through  George  I.,  but  from  the  circumstance 
that  it  supplies  the  sovereign  on  the  throne  and  reigns  by  authority 
of  law,  without  contest — a  great  matter — and  with  the  sanction  of 
Parliament,  the  Lords  and  Commons. 

The  House  of  Hanover  began  its  reign  with  George  I.,  1714,  when 
the  American  colonies  were  in  the  infancy  of  development ;  but  neither 
of  the  four  Georges,  who  reigned  jointly  one  hundred  and  six  years, 
nor  William  IV.,  who  died  June  20, 1837,  was  more  than  an  ordinary 
mortal,  considered  apart  from  the  crown,  which  invests  its  wearer 
with  official  patronage  and  royal  prerogatives  and  rights. 

Queen  Victoria,  distinguished  for  her  domestic  virtues  and  motherly 
merits,  and  for  the  higher  standard  established  in  her  court,  and  who 
personally  commands  the  respect  and  the  affectionate  good-will  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  was  crowned  at  Westminster  June  28, 
1838.  Queen  Victoria,  only  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Kent,  was 
born  May  24,  1819;  was  married  to  her  cousin,  Prince  Albert  of 
Saxe-Coburg,  February  10,  1840 ;  Prince  Albert  died  December  14, 
1861,  lamented  arid  mourned.  As  the  issue  of  woman  born  into  the 
world  with  life  is  nowhere  exempted  from  death,  the  common  penalty 
imposed  by  nature,  there  is  a  democratic  condition  in  the  child  born 
naked  into  the  world,  in  helplessness  and  dependence,  and  a  demo 
cratic  condition  in  the  hereditary  potentate  when  death  levels  him 
down  on  his  back  to  die  like  his  subject,  and  mingle  his  dust  with 
universal  humanity  in  common  mother  earth.  All  men,  therefore, 
are  born  democrats  and  die  democrats,  wherefore  democracy,  primitive 
and  pure  in  nature,  where  party  name  cannot  corrupt,  is  the  normal 
condition  of  the  beginning  and  ending  of  man's  sojourn  in  the  society 


85 

to  which  he  owes  service,  in  the  years  of  his  responsibility  between 
youth  and  age,  when  the  vigor  of  manhood,  which  includes  all  of  life 
but  its  ends,  fits  him  for  duty.  The  superiority  claimed  for  royalty  is 
a  mockery  of  spirituality  with  materialism.  Did  not  the  Son  of  God 
say,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world"  ?  It  was  the  mission  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  redeem  the  world  from  the  penalty  of  its  sin  and  assure  to 
mankind  a  possible  higher  life  in  a  spiritual  sphere,  where  material 
matters  cannot  be  perverted  to  confound  the  masses  by  arch  diplo 
matists,  lawyers,  and  mercenaries ;  such  as  abound  in  the  old  world 
at  this  present  juncture  of  abrasion  among  the  branches  of  the  race 
founded  by  Adam,  saved  from  drowning  by  Noah,  and  made  progres 
sive  by  the  inspired  words  of  the  Saviour,  who  was  crucified  because 
he  preached  against  temporal  kingdom.  Love  of  splendor  was  the 
ruin  of  the  Jews,  who  loved  glitter  better  than  God.  And  wherein  is 
London  better  than  Jerusalem,  for  does  not  London  covet  empire  and 
lust  for  conquest? 

In  proportion  as  intelligence  is  spread  among  the  people,  crowns 
will  be  shorn  of  their  prerogatives,  which  in  most  cases  are  usurpa 
tions,  and  written  constitutions  will  restrict  incumbents  of  office  within 
limits.  Contrast  the  caskets  which  contain  the  dust  of  departed  kings 
who  reigned  by  dynastic  birthright,  with  the  slab  that  covers  the  grave 
of  a  patriot,  author,  discoverer,  or  inventor,  conspicuous  in  human  annals. 

Go  into  Westminster  Abbey,  and  observe  how  visitors  search  in  the 
Poet's  Corner  for  names  perennial  in  the  reader's  mind  and  immortal 
in  the  world  of  letters.  Is  not  England  more  indebted  to  ministers 
of  state  than  to  its  kings  and  queens?  Is  it  not  notorious  that  her' 
Majesty's  ministers  managed  the  Crown,  manipulated  the  Porte,  and 
ignored  the  Houses  of  Parliament  (albeit  the  Commons  ought  and 
might  exercise  a  controlling  influence  in  the  realm),  in  the  negotiation 
and  ratification  of  the  Treaty  of  Defensive  Alliance  with  Turkey, 
signed  June  4, 1878,  arid  amended  July  1,  twenty-six  days  thereafter? 
Why,  then,  as  the  Crown  of  England  is  cast  in  a  subordinate  part  in 
the  practice  of  England,  where  the  ministry  usurps  the  functions  of 
government  in  making  treaties  with  foreign  powers,  wherein  prospective 
war  is  made  probable,  are  the  princes  and  princesses  of  the  House  of 
Hanover,  a  German  graft,  exalted  in  official  and  social  honors  over 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  Englishmen,  distinguished  for  service  to 
their  country  ? 

Contemplate  the  Commonwealth  under  Cromwell,  as  a  power  among 
nations,  with  the  monarchy  under  Charles  II.  and  his  successors  ! 
Princes  and  princesses  are  men  and  women  born  in  lawful  wedlock, 
like  citizens  and  subjects,  nothing  more.  Nor  does  their  so-called 
royal  birth  entitle  them  to  consideration,  social  or  political,  over  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  President  or  Presidentess  in  Washington. 


86 

In  the  United  States  the  President  relapses  into  the  citizen,  and  his 
children  blend  in  the  society  of  the  common  country,  as  raindrops 
disappear  in  a  river.  And  so  with  prince  and  princess,  husband  and 
wife,  who  come  over  from  Europe  to  hold  office  in  Canada.  The 
Governor-General  and  his  wife  are  official  characters,  entitled  to  the 
consideration  awarded  to  unexceptionable  persons  in  distinguishing 
office.  And  if  the  Duke  of  Argyll  so  administers  his  office  as  to  win 
admiration  of  his  modesty  and  respect  for  his  talents,  he  will  earn  a 
name  that  will  emit  a  lustre  which  cannot  be  borrowed  from  a  title. 

The  American  Union  has  developed  very  many  distinguished  men, 
who  exalted  the  official  rank  in  which  they  served  their  country,  and 
whose  names  fill  the  offices  they  held  with  honorable  associations. 
But  because  an  American  citizen  is  made  a  president,  a  general, 
senator,  or  ambassador,  to  perform  a  duty  for  a  compensation,  with 
opportunity  to  stimulate  the  official  to  win  fame  and  deserve  gratitude, 
success  under  such  circumstances  is  not  a  reason  for  a  grant  or  inher 
itance  to  his  children ;  for  the  citizen  is  under  obligation  to  discharge 
his  duty,  and  for  simply  doing  his  duty  no  one  is  entitled  to  extra 
praise ;  although  for  service  measured  by  merit,  the  American  people  are 
prone  and  prompt  to  award  praise,  in  ways  more  substantial  than  words. 

The  moon  has  no  atmosphere,  and  consequently  shines  without  a 
mist.  The  American  citizen  has  no  title,  and  is  judged  on  his  charac 
ter  and  record.  A  title  is  a  veil  and  so  is  a  cloud  ;  but  a  veil  like  a 
cloud  is  only  a  temporary  obscuration,  for  a  cloud  will  pass  away  on 
the  wind  arid  a  veil  is  a  penetrable  disguise  to  penetrating  eyes.  Hence 
the  title-wearer,  like  the  weather  overhead,  must  withstand  observa 
tion  and  criticism.  Like  the  stars  in  space,  officials  in  titles  must 
undergo  scrutiny  through  the  telescope,  for  the  constituent  is  an 
astronomer  given  to  exact  calculation. 

An  envelope  is  not  a  letter.  In  a  republic  a  title  is  no  more  than 
a  counterfeit  bank  note.  And  if  Great  Britain  would  capitalize  its 
aristocracy  at  the  par  of  its  self-estimated  value  and  then  appraise  it 
at  what  it  is  worth  to  the  realm,  in  the  opinion  of  experts  appointed 
to  detect  and  expose  fraud,  it  would  be  shown  that  the  Turkish  loan 
is  not  the  largest  nominal  asset  of  Great  Britain. 

The  Marquis  of  Lome,  the  husband  of  the  Princess  Louise  and 
son-in-law  of  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  Empress 
of  India,  as  supplemented  by  Lord  Beaconsfield,  is  Governor-General 
of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  in  the  service  of  a  foreign  country  with 
which  the  nation  of  the  United  States  has  great  and  grave  reasons 
for  dissatisfaction  and  displeasure ;  nor  will  these  reasons  cease  to 
acquire  force  from  current  facts,  till  the  British  government  discon 
tinues  its  plots  in  America,  where  its  designs  are  as  intelligible  as  if 
printed  in  its  London  programme. 


INDEX 


Acre,  British  Fleet  at,               .  .             .             .             .             .             go 

Alaska,         .             .             .             .             .  .             .             .      30,  33,  39,  62,  76 

Algiers,  British  Fleet  at,           .......  80 

America,  no  Dynasty  in,     .             .             .  .             .             .             .      21,  64,  75 

Ammon,  R.  A.,  Brakeman  at  Pittsburgh,  .....             52 

Area  of  the  American  Union,        .             .  .             .             .             .             .20 

Austria,              .             .             .             .  .                           .  9,  11,  44,  46,  51,  67,  77 

Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  ......               6 

Berlin,  Congress  of,             .  .             .             .             .             .9,  40,  47,  50,  67,  77 

Black  Sea  once  a  Turkish  Lake,  .....             11,46,78 

Boundary  Line,        .             .  .             .             .             .             .             .10,33,37 

British  Columbia,          .             .  .             .             .             .             .         5,  14,  21,  27 

British  Navy  at  Copenhagen,  Algiers  and  Acre,   .  .             .             .             .79 

Buffalo.  City  of,              .             .  .             .             .             .             .             .       12,  23 

Canada,  Dominion  of,  .             .             .             .           3,  6,  13,  23,  27,  33,  66 

Canada,  Governor-General  of,  ......             81 

Canada  Grand  Trunk  Railway,  .             .             .             .             .             .             .38 

Canada  Pacific  Railway,           .  .             .             .             .                      5,  24,  27,  37 

Cartier,  Jacques,     .........         5 

Chicago,             .             .             .  .             .             .             .             .             24,  38,  75 

Citizens  and  Subjects,         .  .             .             .                      7,  15,  28,  62,  66,  70,  82 

Delhi  Dynasty  exterminated,  ......  76 

Divine  Right  of  Kings,  Fiction  of,  .  .  .  .  .  .62 

Dynasty,  not  in  North  America,  .  .  .         7,  21,  25,  28,  46,  63,  66,  75 

England,      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  48,  67,  69,  78 

English  Tactics  in  America,     .......  60 

Erie  Canal,  .-  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  16,  23 

Fiction  of  Divine  Right  of  Kings,       ......  62 

Florida,-      ..........      33 

Foreign  Trade  of  the  United  States,  .  .  .  .  .71,72 

Fort  Bourbon,  afterwards  York  Fort,        ......        6 

France,  ...  8,  12,  32,  37,  42,  46,  50,  53 

Germany,     .             .             .             .  .             .             .             .             H/51,  63,  65 

Grant,  General  U.  S.,  .             .             .  .             .             .             .             .       39,  52 

Great  Britain,          .             .             .  .             .             .              16,  35,  39,  41,  48,  58 

Gulf  of  Mexico,             ...  ....             43 

Halifax  Fishery  Award,       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .40 

House  of  Hanover,        ........  84 

Hudson  Bay,  ....  ...  5,  12,  35,  39 

Hudson  Bay  Company,  .  .       12,  37 

Indelible  Names,     .             .             .             .             .             .             .  .             53,  67 

India,  Suppression  of  Mutiny  in,         .             .             .             .             .  .41,  76 

Ireland,  population  of,                     .             .             .             .             .  .             .58 

Italy,      .              .              . 11,  44,  50 


88 

PACK 

Lake  Erie,          .  .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .       16,  22 

Lake  Superior,  .             .             .             .             .             .             .                      6,  23,  34 

Lake  Traverse,  .  .             .             .             .             .             .             .             .       IT,  22 

Lake  Winnipeg,  .             ...                           .             .         4,  17,  22,  32,  39 

London,               .  .....              13,  59,  74 

Louisiana,  .....             11,  26,  32,  62 

Maine,    ..........  15 

Malakhoff  and  Redan  at  Sebastopol,         .  .  .  .  .  .80 

Manitoba,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         6,  26,  33,  68 

Mexico,         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  4,  21,  64,  75 

Middle  Sea,        .  .  .  .  .  .  ...  27,  36,  39 

Minnesota,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         6,  20,  22 

Minnesota  River  Valley,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       17,  22 

Mississippi,  Basin  of  the,  .  .  .  .  .  .  19,  69 

Mutiny  in  India,  ........  76 

Nelson  River,  .........      26 

New  Boundary  between  Manitoba  and  Ontario,          .  .  .  .  33 

New  Brunswick  and  Maine,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .15 

New  York  City,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      59,  69 

Nova  Scotia  and  Massachusetts,  .  .  .  .  .  .15 

Ontario,  Province  of,   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  33 

Original  Thirteen  States,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  36,  62 

Pennsylvania  Railroad,  .  .  .  .  .  .  6 

Philadelphia,  .........      69 

Philadelphia  Soldiers  at  Pittsburgh,  ......  55 

Pittsburgh,  .........      55 

Population,        .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  6,  58,  64 

Population,  Nativities  of,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .65 

Public  Opinion  the  paramount  power,  .  .  ...  .  25 

Railroad  Distances,      .       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .24 

Railway  Expansion  in  six  years,          ......  73 

Red  River  of  the  North,      .  .  .  .  .  .  .       17,  23,  39 

Republic  of  Prance,      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  8,  12,  45,  53,  63 

Revulsion  of  1873,  some  of  the  Causes  of,  .  .  .  .  .72 

Riot  not  Insurrection,  ........  56 

Russia,          .  .  .  .  .  .  .         9,  42,  47,  50,  78 

Saint  Paul,        .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       18,  23 

San  Juan  Island  Arbitration,         .  .  .  .  .  .  .40 

Serlick  Settlement,       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .        5,  37 

Shoes  not  flanged  in  America,      .......        7 

Spain,     .  ........      44,  51 

St.  Lawrence  River,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      14,  24,  43 

St.  Louis,  .........  44 

Texas,          .........  20,  31 

Thirteen  Original  States,          .  .  ,  .  .  .  .      36,  62 

Trade  of  the  United  States,  .  .  .  .  .  .  71,  72 

Transvaal  Republic,     ........  62 

Traverse  Lake  Summit,      .  .  .  .  .  .-  .17 

Turkey,  ....;.  9,  45,  50,  67,  78 

United  States,          .  .  .  .  .  .  3,  10,  13,  19,  39,  51,  65,  86 

Vienna,  Congress  of,     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  10,  40 

Washington  Territory,        .             .             .             .             .             .             .  5,  21 

Washington  Treaty  of  1871,    .             .             .             .             .             .             .  39,  59 

West,  the,  bound  by  Hudson  Bay  and  Gulf  of  Mexico,  ...  18,  35 

Western  States,  when  admitted  into  the  Union,         ....  19 

Western  Territories,  when  organized,       .             .             .             .             .  .20 


